This isn't the pits.

Today, Lisa Z. (who was VERY busy doing "family sick day" stuff! wink wink) and I hit up Spicer Orchard in Fenton for some cherry picking, visions of pies and jams dancing in our heads (and a few other secret projects!). We arrived bright and early, beating the crowds and the heat, and within an hour and a half or so, we had two full buckets of cherries (and Lisa had two quarts of raspberries, too).

I see you, cherry!

Get in my bucket!

Tart pie cherries.

Sweet cherries.

When we were done picking, we took the quick hayride back to the coolest... thing... ever. Giant cherry pitter!

The pitter couldn't do the bigger, sweet cherries, but that was ok because I planned on keeping those intact anyway. Pit pit pit!

I have tomorrow planned as the big project day, but, to get a head start, I threw together some dough this afternoon. What a mess that made!

Jessica recommended this dough recipe from Martha Stewart: dough. It says to use a food processor. Well, you can see mine in this pic -- it's tiny! So I decided to try the blender. My blender sucks. Alas (that's for you, Liz!), I ended up doing sort of batches in the tiny processor. I think I added a little too much water, so I threw some extra flour in to de-stickify it a little. Fingers crossed.

Handy tip I read about and tried today: instead of chopping (cold) butter into small pieces, grate it using a large-hole cheese grater. It worked like a charm. (I still can't believe I used TWO sticks of butter in this dough! Holy crap!)

Wish me luck tomorrow as I embark on more old-lady endeavors! :)