Roomie called a tree guy to see about chopping down a tree. One trunk fell over a few months ago, and a 30-foot branch came down in a wind storm about four years ago. Better to get rid of the thing before it falls on the house. Turns out it’s a wild cherry tree. (I’ve never seen any fruit on or near it.) In three weeks it will be firewood for the Winter.
Anyway, it’s surrounded by blackberry bushes. (Kudzu of the North!) I never paid any attention to them, but by golly there are ripe berries on them! I plucked as many as were in easy reach of a person wearing zoriis and shorts (and still got stuck a couple of times) and ate a couple. Not particularly sweet. I sprinkled some sucrose on them and put them in the fridge.
I’ve an apple tree in the back yard too. Puny apples. Like two inches in diameter, max. I pretty much ignore them, too. I made a pie of them a few years ago, and it was OK. But the apples are too small to mess with. I picked one of them and cut it up and ate it. Not very sweet, not really tart. Just sort of bland. The squirrels like them, though.
You might see if any of the wood is worth saving. I’ve got a beautiful bed frame made from solid cherry. I have no idea if your tree is usable for something like that, or if it’s possible to save any pieces that would be large and straight-grained enough to interest a woodworker.
I’ve known people who had trees removed, and everyone always seemed to treat the wood as junk to be hauled away. I’ve also been to a specialty lumber yard and seen how much solid hardwoods cost. Between those two things, something doesn’t add up.
Too much trouble to saw it into planks. It’s either have the tree guy chip it (his first offer), or else chunk it up for firewood. If I absolutely have to have cherry wood for furniture or something, I’ll just buy it. It might be a shame to burn it, but at least I’ll get some use out of it.
Re. the blackberries…coast blackberries make the best wine I’ve ever had. A friend makes a pilgrimage to the blackberry country every fall and comes back with gallons, makes it all into this incredibly toothsome wild blackberry wine. He adds about 10% Salal berries to the mix, which adds just a touch of bitterness to the blackberries sweetness. I manage to talk him out of a few bottles every year. If you’ve ever wanted to try home winemaking, take advantage of the blackberries!
SS
My blackberries, what there were of them this year, were tiny and hard because of the heat and drought, I picked half as many as last year. According to legend, September 29, Michaelmas Day, is the last day you can pick them because after that The Devil spits on them. So get pickin’! Too bad your apples are blah, I’ve made gallons of applesauce from unwanted garden produce…which brings me to why I came here: does burning cherry wood have a noticeable different smell? I know pine and hickory, but what is cherry wood burning like?
Well, I wasn’t thinking you’d do it yourself. Isn’t there a lumberyard that would want it? They must get their wood from somewhere, and I’d hate to see it go to waste.
Nor was I. What I meant was that I’d have these 50-foot trunks (well, they’re going to be topped first) that I’d have to haul away or have hauled away. It won’t go to waste. I have a wood-burning stove.
Seconded, although wild cherry may be very different from cherry. At least talk to some woodworking people before throwing it into the fireplace. Old wood is rare and valuable. Hell, some people might want your firewood to make pens with.
I love blackberries - they grow in massive profusion here in the UK - yet, astonishingly, people still buy little sterile punnets of the cultivated (and usually inferior) kind in the shops, then carry them back to their cars, walking past bushes festooned with wild blackberries.
My favourite bit of the blackberry harvest though, is not eating them - it’s picking a large bowl of fresh wild blackberries, then just inhaling their fantastic aroma - the aroma is really hard to preserve during preparation, but if they’re cooked really lightly, it’s possible to preserve it.
Here’s a recipe (on my own site) for a traditional British recipe for them - blackberry and apple crumble
