Thanks all. conchita.......I hadn't thought of that! I think I'll try that. Actually......I had a female cardinal hit my window (on purpose) from 6a.m.-9p.m. every day. It drove me nuts. I got my fake owl (which was in my shed with my golf cart, hoping to scare away the mice that chewed the wires)........and put it on a stick and positioned it in front of the window. Worked like a charm! I think she was more scared of it than the mice get though. Oh, yes..I was saying.........I was thinking of putting it by my cherry tomatoes, to see if that would work. But I have the feeling I'll be picking the tomatoes early.

For cherries a longer wait will often give you better fruit. Look for the darker colored fruits, those are further along, and keep testing a few of the darkest ones until they are perfectly ripe. Now you know the picking point, and wait on the rest until they get to that color. My White Gold is ripening now, they are all sweet and edible but they have a ways to go before they are really good. In a yellow cherry you look for how yellow vs white the background is but otherwise its the same idea as with red cherries. Scott

Maybe you already got an answer. I found one fruit that had been knocked off quite green on the ground some time ago, and it was soft, so I ate it. It tasted sweet. I think like most fruit it is better to pick it ripe so the sugars have developed but that if picked hard for storage purposes it will eventually soften so you can eat it. Perhaps that would be good if you had a lot of fruit to store, like pears.

Ha! Thanks for setting me straight, trsinc. --I was having a hard time finding the board where I posted my question initially. :) I guess I'll just be scouring the ground for drops.