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So, how did we manage to pick 23 kilos of cherries in one day?  Well, here’s the trick.

First, you need a lumberjack.

Lumberjack lurks beneath the cherry tree

Then it’s just a matter of …

Down ...

... she ...

... goes!

Then you send in the pickers.

Lumberjack of all trades

Little picker

It’s a bit of a shame to lose the largest of our cherry trees. But the lowest branches were so high, it was impossible to get any fruit from it, so only the birds were getting any benefit.

To answer Kathleen’s comment:

“and then did you pit them all?!”

we pitted a lot of them, by a variety of methods.  Some were cooked and then mushed through a grid (for jam), some were cooked for wine making, some were pitted by hand and made into pies.   We have thirtysomething jars of jam downstairs, some dried cherries going into our muesli, some fruit leather, some cordial, and some cherry wine that is getting very promising.

No kidding.  Sixteen goats in a tree.  I want a tree full of goats!

We were in a secondhand office furniture store today, looking for desk chairs. I thought all these overhead projectors looked pretty sad. These were such a constant presence through all the years of my education, and now they’re so obsolete. I can’t imagine anyone buying these – they are probably all going to end up at the dump.

We’ve had the most stunning weather this Easter weekend – our thermometer recorded a max of 26.3 degrees, on the shady (north) side of the house.  The sun was scorching and we spent most of the weekend out of doors.

Being Easter, there was a lot of visiting and being visited.  On Friday we travelled down to Skällinge to visit Göran’s farmlet.  Anneli got to meet some rabbits and some big delicious looking ducks!

On Saturday we had an afternoon fika with family, outside on the deck.  There was smoked salmon, serrano ham, mouldy cheese, hot cross buns and cake.  I even found a few random daffodils in our garden to decorate the table.

On Sunday we did some gardening, then went off visiting again.  Linus & Janne helped with the assemblage of a new dock for Linus’s cousin’s new boat.

There are a few things missing from Swedish Easter celebrations – namely: hot cross buns and chocolate-coated marshmellow eggs.  I was able to make my own hot cross buns thanks to the genius of Alison Holst and the wonders of the internet.  But next year I will have to beg for someone to send a care parcel of chocolate-coated marshmellow eggs. Still, it’s nice to have Easter in the spring, and was especially nice with this unusually warm weather we’re having.

I haven’t said anything here yet about the Christchurch quake, because I really haven’t known what to say.  It was much easier to post about knitting.  I was listening to updates on Newstalk ZB for a couple of days, but finally switched it off yesterday afternoon because it was getting too depressing, and I didn’t know how to explain to Anneli why I was being sad.

Simply put, it is heartbreaking to see this happen to a place I used to call home, and I’m just so thankful that my friends all seem to be unscathed.

Linus lost his mobile last weekend, and since we were out of contract anyway we decided to upgrade to Android phones. So I’m blogging this from my phone. Which is quite tedious. I probably won’t do it much.

The phone has a camera too of course. Here is a photo of Frida.

The snow has almost all melted here, although some of the newspapers (those that are prone to overly dramatic headlines) are predicting more “shock” weather “attacks”.  But we took advantage of being able to drive a stroller around the neighbourhood and took our girls for a walk in The Tank.

The Tank

We acquired The Tank via Freecycle.  It’s a little rusty and dusty, and the steering is somewhat the opposite of nimble.  But you can’t beat the price!

The Troops

Just a quick post to say that Anneli’s and Frida’s blogs have been updated with some new photos – check out anneli.corin.net and frida.corin.net.

At last, baby Frida decided to join us on Wednesday afternoon, 10 days past her due date.  It was another pretty quick labour, just under 7 hours from start to finish, but with a very intense conclusion (anyone who wants the gory details can ask for them!).  She weight 3.655kg at birth and measured 51cm long.

It was very frustrating for me to go overdue, so thanks to everyone who did not bombard me with “is the baby here yet?” questions.  It’s a big relief that I don’t have to worry about hitting a deadline and having to be chemically induced.  So she did well, in the end!

Everyone is healthy & happy.  Anneli is so far a very sweet and caring big sister, and is fascinated by this new tiny addition to the household.

Frida has her own blog at http://frida.corin.net where we will be uploading more photos.