It’s U-Pick time! This weekend I had the great pleasure of going berry-picking — blueberries and cherries — and I am feeling overwhelmed and in awe of the shefa, abundance, of the earth’s produce.

It’s true, I’m working on a farm this summer, and I have my fill abundance right here. We’re just starting to reap the most amazing gifts from the Sadeh: basil, tomatoes, cabbages, kale, collards, swiss chard, beets, daikons, cucumbers, zucchini, summer squash — and today, for the first time, garlic!

And on Shabbat last week we had several dishes that were made mostly or entirely from food that we had grown, or made from our animal products. Tzatziki from our cucumbers, garlic scapes and yogurt we made from our goat milk (if anyone has any ideas for local replacements to lemon juice, let me know!) A zucchini-carrot caserole with eggs from our chickens, and our own squash and onions. My favorite creation is a garlic scape pesto: finely chopped garlic scapes, olive oil, kosher salt and red chili flakes makes a tasty sauce for just about anything.

But this didn’t keep me from going out this weekend to pursue even more of the season’s delights: FRUIT.

We picked blueberries from Thompson Finch Organic Farm on Saturday — the very start of the season, so they were a little sour, but made excellent blueberry jam, (which we’ve nearly finished eating!) And Sunday we went to Fix Brothers Fruit Farm to pick cherries.

Cherry trees draping the hills above Hudson, NY, low and orderly, amidst fields of apples and peaches, hard and green, reminder of summer’s end and things to come. These cherry trees were SO FULL OF FRUIT! The sweet cherries were at the end of their season, the sour black cherries were just beginning, and in both cases, we picked handfuls and handfuls of juicy red-black berries, totally overwhelmed at the beauty and abundance of the trees, the land.

Such a great use of sunlight! I exclaimed, and it truly was something to marvel at, these fruit-laden trees, that just grow there on the hills and put out such delightful fruit every year. It’s a short season, a few weeks maybe, and then we’ll be on to peaches and plums, and the cycle of jams and pies will continue. I love eating fruit when it’s in season, I hardly think of it when it’s not in season, and it’s such a delight to bite into your first cherry of the year, and say, “Oh yeah! I remember this!” To notice when the trees are full with fruit, to feel that you’re part of a community that comes to the farmer’s orchard at the right time to pick the fruit and thank them for a year’s worth of tending and care.

Food doesn’t come in a gradual trickle. When it’s ripe it’s RIPE and it’s there and ready for eating. It’s a welcome break from the idea of food as constant, simple sustenance — to actually allow yourself to celebrate the ebbs and flows of the harvest with a feast, a pitting and canning party, a freshly-baked pie on a Tuesday night for no other reason than the fact that this is the night that the cherries are ready.

Go pick!