Dreaming about cherries until next spring

Andrew and I recently moved to a new house, and we were pleasantly surprised to find a cherry tree loaded with fruit in the back yard on moving-in weekend. The tree is pictured below.

The cherries are of the red tart variety. Sadly, this year, few of them were picked and processed because it took a while to find both the time for picking and the pots and sugar for preparing the cherries. Also, I needed to make time to buy a cherry pitter, since I had no intention of fussing around with paring knives or hairpins for extracting the pits from pounds of cherries.

We got a pound or so of cherries off the tree as the last of the fruits ripened. I pitted them and stewed them with a little demerara sugar, making a simple but special oatmeal topping for breakfast with our first houseguests. The flavor was described by one guest as "like mixing cherry cobbler and oatmeal."

Dreaming about what to do with the crop of cherries next year, when I'll be ready for them. Cherry pie. Cherry crisp/cobbler. Cherry jam. Dried cherries. More stewed cherries. Cherry bread pudding. I just hope there are enough cherries to supply all my ambitions.