Blueberries for Sal Josiah, David, Tobin, Shav, & Moriah!

Every summer, I look forward to getting gallons of sour cherries and blueberries from a local fruit market and preparing them for the freezer, so that, all throughout the year, I can make things like this and like this.  :)  But this year, sadly, that fruit market seems to have gone out of business.  Every time we drive by, it's deserted (last year, it was mostly deserted, but opened for business whenever they had a shipment of fruit to distribute); and I've tried the two telephone numbers I have for it, but neither one gets any answer.  So, I've been mourning the loss of sour cherries and blueberries.  Silly, right?

Well, so be it.  

You can imagine my joy when I saw a newspaper ad two days ago for a pick-your-own blueberry farm not too far away from here.  Maybe I wouldn't have to go all summer deprived of an abundance of blueberries!  :)

Yesterday morning, the kids and I set out, winding our way along beautiful back roads, ready for the adventure that awaited.  We were delighted to see these signs...

...and even more delighted to meander back the long country lane until we got to the field of blueberries.  We hopped out, greeted the friendly folks who run the place, and got our buckets.  Ready for action.  :)

Each of the boys took a bucket, and Moriah "shared" with me.  In reality, she really did help!  She would fill her little hands with berries, I would remind her not to eat them (although she snuck a few, which is understandable), then she would manage to get them in the bucket I carried.  I'm sure it was due to her help that I filled my bucket before any of the boys filled theirs.  ;-)

It was so pleasant to pick these berries!  It got a little warm (and I regretted wearing a black shirt), but it wasn't hot enough to be miserable.  And it was easy to find bushes that were just loaded with berries.

This farm doesn't spray their plants, so it was nice to know that we were getting truly healthy fruit.

 I was really proud of all of the kids; they worked hard and didn't complain, and when all of our buckets were full, they asked if they could run up and down through these aisles while I paid for the berries.  I sure didn't have enough energy left for that, but they did.  ;-)  It's hard to tell from these pictures, but the rows are actually set on a hill, so running back up after running down was genuine exercise!  :)

 The people who run this farm were so friendly and helpful; it was a joy to support their business!

I'm happy to report that, unlike Sal, our literary predecessor, we didn't have any run-ins with bears.  ;-)  There was, however, a friendly dog that the kids got to pet.  :)

Even baby brother got in on the blueberry-picking act, although his chief contribution was blocking my view of my bucket.  ;-)

I'm guessing that this was the start of what will become an annual tradition for us.  :)

We'll likely see you again, blueberry fields!  :)