Welcome to Door County

After our recent stop in Green Bay, we drove on up to Door County to spend the night.  Favored as a vacation getaway for much of Wisconsin, it is essentially like large thumb jutting up in to Lake Michigan.  We stayed at a quaint little place in Sister Bay called "The Village View Inn."  Small, but comfy, with lots of friendly people.  Our little cottage backed up to a pretty flower and tree covered bluff.

Dotted with pretty little port towns along both shore lines (Lake Michigan and Green Bay) Door County is also known for it's delicious tart cherries.  The Montmorency variety is the most popular and plentiful, but they also grow other red and yellow sweet varieties.  We tasted quite a few delicious samples and also bought several quarts to take home from the small roadside stands that line the highways. Sadly, I didn't take any photos of that. Next year!

Nanking Cherry

Our old neighbors back in Wauwatosa gave us a little Nanking cherry tree seedling (Prunus Tomentosa) a year after we moved out to Pewaukee. I dutifully planted it back in our tree line and tended to it for the first few years, only to see it mown over by the subdivision groundskeepers. Heartbroken, I nursed the little stalk - which still had a few leaves - back to life, and put a small barrier of chicken wire around it. Surely that would deter the mowers. Nope! The next year we found the wire bent and twisted in the tree line and the little tree was completely gone! We sadly admitted defeat and soon forgot about it.

Last summer while cleaning out some brush in the tree line, I noticed a small bush near the edge that was overgrown with tall grass. A closer peak revealed that it was covered in tiny cherries. The Nanking had survived after all! Apparently over the past few years, the mowers had changed their boundaries just enough for the little tree to come back to life, yet still be hidden by other wild plants. We cleared it out a bit and put another, larger protection barrier around the slim trunk, and this year it's flowering beautifully. Can hardly wait for the cherries of summer!

Life is a Bowl of Cherries

We have a Montmorency sour cherry tree in our back yard & this year it was prolific! They usually begin to ripen around the Fourth of July and harvest lasts a few weeks. At first we were battling the robins, cedar waxwings, finches, and other birds who were pilfering the fruit, but once we started picking, we realized there were more than enough for every one.

The Montmorency cherries are indigenous to the upper Midwest and are the preferred variety for the standard cherry pie. Judging by my freezer, I cannot tell a lie... we are looking at lots of cherry pie this year!