Confession: I Have Never Eaten Cherry Pie

Until today, I had never eaten cherry pie. I don't really like cherries, and I rarely bake pies, so I'd never had a reason to. But for weeks I've been staring out the window at our beautiful cherry tree, and today, they were just too ripe to ignore any longer. It would have been a tragedy to just let all those cherries go to waste.

So I decided to try my hand at baking a cherry pie. For anyone who's interested, here's a little pictorial play-by-play on how I spent my afternoon, and directions so you, too, can bake your first every cherry pie.


First, find a cherry tree...





















Then, find a ladder and climb up....



























Start picking...


























And pick enough cherries to fill a large bowl...






















Soak them, just to make sure all the bugs are gone (I hate bugs)....




























Rinse them, just to be double sure about the bugs...






















Take out the pits...beware, this part takes forever...





















Mix the cherries into a pan with lots of sugar and cornstarch and heat until boiling...





















Put any extra cherries in jar for later (cherry cobbler, later in the week?)....




























Dump the yummy filling into a pre-made pie crust (who am I kidding...did you really think I was going to make the crust, too?)...






















Bake, and pull them out when they look like this...




























Let them cool on the windowsill, just like June Cleaver would have done...






















If you're feeling generous, take one over to the neighbors, and then enjoy!