A Little Fruity Daydreaming.

   I want a pie cherry tree.  I have an apple tree I can't identify, and the apples never seem to ripen.  I have a grafted multi-sweet cherry tree.  It produces, and has since the first year, but it's only a few years old and doesn't make any kind of big batch yet.  But I can buy sweet cherries anywhere.  It's the sour pie cherries I can't easily find.  But even on this fairly large (for a neighborhood) plot of land we own, there isn't room to plant anymore fruit trees.  See, not only do I live on a hill, most of it is full of alder trees and blackberries.  Clearing that out is potentially a very dangerous, and very difficult task.
   As long as I can remember, I've wanted my own personal mini-orchard.  Growing up in California, there were several orchards of various types.  I remember both nuts and fruits... apricots and walnuts being the most prominent in my memory.  I even remember an almond tree at the apartments we lived at when I was really little.
   When we moved to Washington, I remember our first house having it's own selection of tasty goods.  Behind the house was a handful of plum trees back by the blackberry patch.  I've never been a big plum fan, so mostly what I remember was the smell of the rotting fruit as it dropped to the ground.  But, off to the side of the large yard was an apple tree I remember very little of aside from climbing it, and my personal favorite, a cherry tree.  Not just any cherry tree, but a pie cherry tree.  Beautiful, bright, shiny, tart pie cherries.  That tree was absolutely loaded in them!  For me, even with such a very small knowledge of what the heck was growing in the yard, and what it took to take care of it all, these trees were heaven in a small chunk of suburbia.
   Now I own a home, and I have two fruit trees that don't have use as of yet.  (At least the cherry tree has promise.)  I am hugely overrun with blackberries, and while that is unpleasant, at least it's useful.  Somewhere buried under the blackberries is some thimbleberries and raspberries.  Or at least I've found the thimble berries and I'm told by my husband that raspberries are under there somewhere.  But none are trees, and none make up for an actual pie cherry tree.
   So I shall continue to dream.  I don't really want an all out orchard, but the cherries would be nice.  Both pie and sweet.  And an apple tree or two that produce edible apples.  A couple plums (since the rest of the family enjoys them).  God I'd love some peaches, but I don't think they'd grow here.  Pears.  Oooh!  Apricot.  I'm told those might grow here.  But seriously, I'd be perfectly happy with just the pie cherries and an actual edible apple.