It’s a Michigan podcast, we’ve gotta do a cherry episode! This week, Aral is joined by talented actress, singer, comedian and teaching artist, Kaitlyn Bess Reil who brought her own character…and boyfriend…onto the show! Kaitlyn plays the titular “Sherri,” and my surprise guest, Austin Fajnor, plays “Buck.” You’re gonna love this couple as much as they love each other! Enjoy the completely scripted interview with Sherri’s Cherries!

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Website: Aral Gribble

Instagram: Gribbles 'n' Bits

YouTube: Trollin' the Mitten

Crawl out from under your bridges. Cause it's time for Trollin' the Mitten, Your favorite local comedy podcast, where we bring you the best and brightest from the Great Lakes State.

I'm your host, Aral Gribble, a Michigan reconnect student here at Lansing Community College in the Digital Media, Audio and Cinema program, where, just like in nature, stars are forged through exposure to pressure and a lot of hot air. Welcome back to the show. Hello. It's everybody's favorite Michigan podcast, and I am your host, Aral Gribble. Today is our cherry episode.

If you're not from Michigan, you don't know. I don't know why. I suppose we should have done some research before this episode, but cherries are huge in Michigan now. I do know why.

It's because of the climate is, of course, perfect for it, as long as global warming doesn't ruin everything. So in this episode, I once again roped an incredibly talented friend of mine, Ms. Kaitlyn Bess Reil.

She is a performer, a teaching artist, singer, actress. She's so funny. She's so talented. And what I didn't know is her boyfriend, Mr. Austin Fainer, is also very funny.

And she surprised me by having him with her when she showed up to record, and I was delighted. I'm so happy to have met him and to have him on the show. A performer, at least that he hasn't told me. He is. He should be. He is on the show.

You'll notice if you look at the show notes, there's no social media for him because this gentleman does not want the attention. But I think we should give him all the attention he deserves. He plays Buck, the boyfriend. That's the only spoiler I'll give you.

Remember, nothing's rehearsed, everything's improvised. No planning, no practice. No problem. Enjoy the show. Hey, we're back trolling the mitten. Today.

We're up in Traverse City, Michigan, cherry capital of the world at one of the best cherry farms in the area, if I do say so myself. We are here with Sherry of Shell Sherry's Cherries. Sherry, say hello for the folks at home.

Well, hi, everyone.

How are you? Sherry, thanks for being here.

I'm doing great today. Thank you so much for coming out, Aral. It's been a pleasure.

Oh, we're so excited. We love everything Michigan. We love everybody Michigan. And believe it or not, we've yet to have any cherry specialists on the show.

Oh, my goodness. Well, I'm honored.

As am I. So how long have you been in the cherry game? Sherry.

I have been in the cherry game my whole life, Aral, because my whole life has been cherries. I was named after cherries. They thought that cherry was too cheesy, so my parents named me Sherry.

Sherry.

But the whole business was started about the time that I was born, and they named me after the farm. They thought it would be clever.

So Sherry's cherries.

Yes, that's my cherries.

So. And, you know, I don't want to blast you out on the radio, but you don't look that old. What, early 30s, maybe?

Yep, yep. A ripe 30. That's me. But my parents started this farm, and they. They needed to rebrand a little bit.

About the time I came along, there had been maybe some controversy from my grandparents a minute ago, and they decided to rebrand and start fresh with new. New marketing and new things going on. And then I came along. They thought, perfect.

Beautiful.

Sherry's ready to handle it.

The little cherry baby.

The little cherry baby. That was me.

That's amazing. I gotta ask, though, what happened with your grandpa?

I'm not really sure what happened. I think he. He decided to get out of the game. It was starting to be a young man's cherry game.

You had to be on top of branding and marketing, and you had to sell to the stores. Sure, it was different times back then. You could just open a stand on the side of the road and make pies in the.

In the local farmer's market competition. And then you were good. Absolutely. But sure, it was a young man's cherry game. And so he decided to.

To sell it to his daughter, which is my mother, Tammy.

Oh.

He had to get out of the cherry race.

All right, well, I'm glad you're in it now. So how long have you been running the farm?

I've only been running it for, like, the last five years, Erin. Yes, it's still kind of a new thing for me.

Sure.

But I'm very excited to take on this challenge and to grow our Sherry's cherry brand and try. I'm gonna try my best to make it national if I can.

That's amazing. Well, hopefully the podcast can help. What have we got here in your farm? You mentioned the cherry stand. I do see a cherry stand by the road.

Yes. We do keep that one up for our locals and sort of as a tribute to my grandfather.

Absolutely.

Just to keep the old ways alive. So we still have the stand, and

it's one of the fun things I think I love. You know, you could stop for blueberries and pick them so could people do a U pick cherries?

We do, we do do a U pick cherry. During the cherries ripest. We've got the most popular ones.

So most of the trees that you're seeing throughout here are the Montmorency cherry brand, the varietal that is the tart cherries that we grow mostly in all of Michigan here.

Right. That's what Michigan's known for. Right. Those are the ones. Most of them.

All over a couple of the other varietals that you're seeing out there. I'm trying to grow some that maybe aren't known in Traverse City.

Oh, she's a real trendsetter.

I'm really trying. So one of the cool ones that we're trying out here, it's mostly a California based one, is the Rayner cherry. So I'm trying.

Those are the ones in the greenhouse. I'm telling you, I barely gotta work hard to make those ones happen.

The ones that I cannot seem to get going out here is those gosh darn Bada Bing cherries.

Bada Bing.

Those Bada Bings now.

Okay.

Ah, forget about it.

Forget about it. I didn't know there was a cherry named Bada Bing cherries.

There is a Bada Bing cherry.

There's a Bing cherry, but the Bada Bing is different.

The Bada Bing is slightly different. It's actually real.

Does it have more of like a bite? You know, you taste it.

It's like actually quite sweet. It is. So it's not too tart. It's very sweet.

It's like the ladies at the bottom.

That's right. That's right. Aral.

Darker skin. What do they say? The darker the bear, the, the sweeter the cherry, the darker the berry.

I don't know, I could say something like that. I like my cherries how I like my coffee.

Dark. All right, good to know, folks. What do your parents think of all of these new, you know, innovative ideas you're throwing at the family?

Well, my father's very supportive of it. He's very excited about it. He was new to the cherry game when he met my mother.

Oh, okay. So grandpa to mom.

Yes, grandpa to mom. So my father's very excited about all these changes. Very proud. My mom's a little hesitant.

She's a little bit on the side of my grandfather where all these new ideas and these, and these new ways of doing things with that, you know, newfangled Internet, it's not exactly something she's familiar with. So she's a little bit hesitant to the changes.

Bit of a boomer, is she?

A little bit, I tell you, Aral. But she is very excited about all the money it's bringing in.

That's what I was gonna say, you

know, all the success. I don't hear her crying about that.

I think we think a lot about the folksiness of Michigan. But cherries is a big game.

It is, it is big game. Cherry race, I tell you.

And that's, that's part of the appeal of the cherry is because it is such a big part of Michigan and it's been around for so long, you gotta lean into that folksy hominess of the cherry.

Sure. While you're raking in millions.

That's I. Listen, listen, Aral, the taxes, them taxes, I tell you, it's not quite millions.

Maybe we'll be able to tip that in the next couple, couple of years. Part of my five, ten year plan.

She's got a five to ten year plan.

That's right.

To grow Sherry's cherries. All right. Why don't you give us a tour around the farm here?

Absolutely. So right over here we've got the small production. I wouldn't say a factory really. It's just kind of in our own little house, like our back mill area.

More of a pole barn area. So we've got this little area over here. This is where we rake in all the cherries from and we make sure they're organized.

We make sure we got all the good cherries. So we don't, we don't take anything that looks a little bit deformed or a little bit maybe overripe or under ripe.

And then we've got the different areas to section those guys off into over here.

Look at that, is that. You've got like people pulling them out by hand.

That's right, by hand. We are still a by hand production here, Aral. I know that's gonna be something in the next week. Five in my five year plan.

I don't know what I'm going to do. If I'm going to try to size it up for some national stuff, you're

going to need some, some, some relatively inexpensive labor. Maybe hiring some local high school kids or something.

Oh, absolutely. We are huge in the summertime. Oh, we are. The coolest place to work in the summertime, I tell you, huh? We've got a nice big farm here.

And so what we do is we hire some high school kids.

Yeah, there's a bunch of young kids.

That's right.

Do they all have like Work permits. That kid looks. He can't be any older than 13.

Listen here, Aral. Something else we've got over here in our pole barn area is we've got a production area for preserves and jams and jellies.

Oh, of course. Yeah.

So we've got all of these things that. Yeah, we cook it down right over here.

Yeah. Look at them kids just stirring away those jellies.

I know. They're so excited. Don't worry. Hey, guys.

How you doing? Now, do you pay those kids well?

Yeah, we do. Of course we do, Aral.

They. I mean, I don't mean to call you out on the radio, but that kid looks like he's crying over there.

No, no. He just gets so overwhelmed with how much he loves these cherries. Aral, let me tell you. He just gets so excited to be a part of it.

Those are tears of joy.

Tears of joy. Cherries.

Have fun, buddy.

Cherries and the farming, it's just so exciting.

He keeps just, like, shaking his arms like, I'm tired. I don't know. Anyway, but, you know.

Take a lap. Take a lap, Steven.

So this is exciting. I do smell the cherries cooking. So you got cherry jelly, cherry jam?

Yep, we got cherry jam, cherry jelly, cherry sauce, cherry syrup, cherry tart, cherry relish. We're already in Meijer's. We're working. We're finalizing a Kroger contract. We should be in Kroger's by the end of the year.

Okay. Sherry's cherries.

Sherry's cherries. Every cherry should be a little bite of paradise.

Sherry's cherries.

Sherry's cherries.

So, what do you do that makes your cherries paradise bites?

Well, I can't. I can't give away all our trade secrets, Carol.

Of course. All right?

But let me tell you the secret. The secret is in the nitrates in the soil.

Oh.

You gotta start from the growth of the cherry.

The nitrates. Now, what is that? I'm not a farmer, unfortunately. So tell me, what does that mean?

You know what? You know who helped me with this the most? Aral. That's gonna be my boyfriend, Buck. He was actually. He's so smart.

And he was the one that started me on this journey of how to have the part perfect paradise cherry bite.

Buck.

Buck.

You know my boyfriend Buck? You. You say that, and I see you looking across the orchard and there's a strapping gentleman.

Hi, honey.

Yeah, he's, like, shirtless and sweaty. Is that Buck?

That is my Buck.

Is it? Okay, I've got An extra microphone here. We could bring him over.

Oh, absolutely. Oh, I adore him.

Here, bring them on over.

Hey, honey, can you come over here for a sec?

Hi.

Hi, baby.

Hey. Here. Yeah, just right into that microphone. Hey, buddy, how you doing?

Oh, I'm living the dream there, Arrow. How you doing?

Oh, good. So you are the infamous Buck.

Yes.

All right, this is the one.

So a Buck and Sherry. Look at you. You're glowing. Sherry, you're. You're pinker than a cherry.

My goodness, he gets me all. He gets me all riled up that way.

No. Okay. So PG Podcast kids.

Yes, Sarah.

So, Buck, how. How'd you do me?

Oh, well, you know, I was in the area. I'm originally from Ingedyne.

Oh, up in the Up. I thought I heard a little bit of that accent.

He's a goat.

Yep.

So. And I've got a.

It's nice that you're slumming with the trolls down here.

That's actually why I was a little late to the farm today. I've got a beloved. I love her to death. A Polaris 700 sportsman four wheeler. That's my main form of transportation. In the clutch went out.

Oh, no.

And unfortunately they don't carry clutches for that bad boy up at the Melstrand Mall. So I had to come on down the bridge, hang out the trolls for a minute.

And I just happened to be walking through one of the outskirts of their Traverse City, going to like the family farming home to find a clutch for it. And I just happened to see a small. That little red pickup over there unloading some dried cherries.

And I walked over and there Sherry was and I just fell in love with her on the spot.

Oh, love at first.

Cherry it was. He was a little. A little on the rough side, I mean. But that's how I like my men, is.

Yeah.

Outdoors a little rugged.

You are. I would say you're a rugged gentleman.

Well, you know, up in there to up. We don't have all this. These fancy malls and everything. I got to get all my clothes and everything. Really. From the Dollar General.

Yeah.

And even that we're just running to town. Takes probably 20, 30 minutes to go all a country mile.

No, absolutely. But, I mean. But worth it, you know, it looks like you found good pants. You're still looking for a shirt apparently. But that's okay.

Well, I had to use my shirt that I had earlier again because I was late. The clutch on the quad went out again, so I had to take my snowmobile. I don't Own a car because you only drive them two months out of

the year up there, of course.

And unfortunately, riding the snowmobile across the bridge, there was a terrible, terrible swarm of them there mayflies and just splattered all over the shirt. So I had to take it off. And it was just, I couldn't put it back on.

I couldn't see me like that. You know, you can leave it off, you know, it's a fine look. It makes me wish this was a video podcast. Some of the ladies, I think, might enjoy it.

No offense, Sher.

No, none taken. They can all drink it in. I, I, I love Buck. I know. I know what he's about. So they can drink it all in.

That is amazing. Now, are you working on the farm full time now? You living together? Is this a full time relationship or.

Well, we're not living together yet. We've got some plans to have me move down here probably within the next season or two.

Okay.

I've got a couple things up north I got to take care of there first. Now, I don't work on the farm full time, but I, I do the occasional odd job. That's my jack of all trades.

That's how I make my living is a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

Nothing feels more up to me than the jack of all trades.

Yeah. Because we don't have the industry up there that you guys have down here.

Buck, you've been helping out with the nitrates. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, nitrates is fertilizer. Right. So that's where we get it from. Like the poop.

Yes.

So, Buck, how are you, how are you helping with the fertilizer? Do you have like a source up in the up or.

I do, actually. One of my odd jobs is I actually help maintain the Oswald Bear Ranch.

The Oswald Bear Ranch up there in the U.P.

you really just start.

Now this is going to be some trade secrets right now, Aral, that he's given you, so, so be careful, honey.

All right.

So I dearly love the Oswald Bear Ranch. It's fun for the whole family.

Like a ranch of bears.

Yes, more of a sanctuary really, for black bears.

Okay, that's a little nicer. So it's a free range bear sanctuary.

So these are bears that have been injured in one way or another or abandoned, and then they were raised by humans for a certain amount of time so they're not able to go back into the wild.

Oh, it's a bear rescue. You fun. Yeah.

Okay.

Okay. A ramp.

And as most Sanctuaries, do they have indoor and outdoor enclosures for the bears? Because, you know, the weather up there can get pretty gnarly and need a place to hibernate.

And for sanitary purposes, at the end of the season, at the end of the winter, when the bears are coming out of hibernation, someone's got to go in there and clean out their caves.

Oh, so that is actually.

And Buck is the lucky one.

That's actually the. The secret ingredient for Sherry's cherries.

Folks, you heard it here. Here on Trolling the Moon. First, the sweetest cherries come from the meanest berries. I don't know.

I like that.

All right. I'm trying.

I like that.

So bear, bear poop. Bear dung bear.

That's actually the bear scat.

Bear scat.

Bear scat.

Ski bop bop, poop in your pants. All right. That's great. Wow. Bear scat. That's how you grow your cherries.

Those. That is part of the. One of the secrets of Sherry's cherries.

Buck, how many bears you got up there in the farm, in the ranch?

Oh, I'm not sure because again, you know, it's the summertime. They get. Bears come and they go. They go to different sanctuaries around the country, you know, because they keep the population pretty steady.

Bears, while they're semi social, they do like their alone time. So we don't have too many bears up there. I think right now we've probably got 25, 30 bears. Yeah, several cubs that came in.

Unfortunately, a mother was taking this last spring, got an accident splattered by an F150.

Watch your. Watch your trucks on the road, folks. So o break for bears, but wow, that's a. You got quite a ranch up there, then. That's a lot of bear poop, Sherry.

Now I see why you want to grow so big.

That's right.

With that much poop, why wouldn't you?

Exactly. We got. We got excess scat.

Now, are you the one who's bringing that scat down?

Yes. That's actually really the only form of payment I receive from the Oswald bear ranch is I do get to collect, clean out them cages and bring down the.

The experiments in scat also.

I just love the animals, you know, up there. It's just beautiful.

That's nice. What a big soul this boy's got.

He really is big soul.

Hopefully he's got a big everything, you know what I'm saying? Anyway, let's move on. You know what? I feel like we're kind of getting in the way here. I know you got a lot of customers rolling in.

Is there anything that you want to show us before we leave?

I. I think next time, if we were.

We're.

If we're able to do this again, I'd love to have a little bit more of an expansion ready at the Leelanau property, and then maybe you can get in on the ground floor of some of that. That new production that we're looking to have.

But in the meantime, I do want us to head on over to the other side of the house where the bakery is, and I want you to be able to sample one of them tarts.

Let's go. Let's walk on over there. Oh, Buck, you just. You're gonna bring that whole bag of. What do they call that? Bushel. Bushel of chairs with you.

All right.

That's a strapping young fella.

I can't just leave her out there in the orchard.

Sure. So while we're walking, what's. What's the best way to pick those cherries?

I really find it just getting up there on the ladder, getting them down by hand.

Wow.

Because, you know, your. Your fingers see better than your eyes do. So you can really tell when those cherries are ripe under ripe, if they've got. They got worms.

Because, you know, we are all organic here in cherries. Oh, wow.

Organic. So, okay. And your fingers see better than your eyes. That's gotta be a up thing. I don't know if I've ever heard that done, but. All right.

Okay, here we are.

It's a real salt of the earth, fella.

This is a beautiful salt. And let's go through the food.

And here we are in the bakery area again, Just still a small operation.

Yeah.

You smell that, folks?

I wish you had some smell o vision. Man, this smells good.

It's beautiful. It's wholesome. It's all organic. Sherry's cherries. That's right.

What do we got? We got donuts here.

Yep, we got cherry donuts. We're gonna try to break out a little bit more into maybe some other fruits eventually. But it's all so wholesomely cherry right here.

Oh. And there's nothing that says Michigan more than cherry. I love it.

Cherry.

So what's your favorite thing here? What do we got here at the King?

Well, I'm partial to pie. I love our cherry pie. And right here, we actually have mini pies. Mini cherries, cherries, mini pies.

Those are beautiful. Look at that lattice work. Do you do that yourself?

My mother does These? Yes.

Is that her?

Yes.

Behind the counter.

Yep, that's Tammy there.

She smells gorgeous. Tammy, thank you so much. Yep.

And she's the one in charge of all of this here at the bakery because this is what her job used to be. When my grandfather was in charge, she was the one that started the bakery.

She started doing pies and baked goods out at the stand at the front farm, so. And she's still in charge of it. So whoever comes up next with her is going to need to know how to bake. That's probably not going to be me.

I'm not much of a cook.

Get your oven mitts on.

I do have myself there. A personalized set of oven mitts. Sherry got me them for Christmas last year. They got the little bears on them.

Oh, my gosh. Well, look, I want to thank you both so much. Well, anything you want to say to the fans before we sign off?

Just. Thank you so much for having us on today, Aral. Thanks for coming on out to our farm. Please, everybody, go check out Sherry's cherries.

We are going to be national, so get in on the ground floor while you can, folks.

That's right. So, you know, come on up here to Traverse City or stop by your local Myers and grab some cherries. Cherries.

Come on by the Traverse City Cherry Festival. We've got a big stand every single year. Come out and represent.

All right. Thank you so much for being on the show. You, too. I expect an invitation to the wedding.

Oh, absolutely.

I'll bring some cherries. This is Ben trolling the mitten.

Woo. Buck is so cute. You should take him out to the cherry shed.

That's all for today, Yooper Scoopers. Remember, you can listen to this in every one of our episodes on LCD plus all your major streaming platforms. Thank you so much for tuning in.

We hope you had as much fun as we did. And until next time, if you seek a pleasant peninsula look about you.