Blueberries for Ann

Saturday morning my husband and I got up bright and early and headed out of the house to pick blueberries.  We packed up sandwiches, lots of water, sunscreen, and bug spray.  On the hour and a half drive we spent time talking about upcoming events, how we were both doing with things, and what are goals are for the house.  We passed a great looking fruit stand and vowed to stop on the way back (we got a half bushel of the best peaches I have tasted in a long time!). 

The sign that welcomed us to our blueberry picking fun!

After a couple of wrong turns and having to use my husband's blackberry (the irony :), we found the farm.  It was already getting warm but we were there and excited, so with white buckets in hand we hopped on the golf cart and got a ride out to the blueberry bushes.  We learned that the farm had over 60 acres of blueberry plants, they just seemed to go on and on.  Another thing we learned is that there is more than one type of blueberry.  They actually had us try two different kinds and then pick which one we liked the best.  We both liked the tarter kind. 

Here is just a snapshot of the rows and rows of bushes.

Once we had found our row we got down to business.  My husband and I started picking next to each other, but over the course of picking drifted apart, and then back together.  I enjoyed feeling the sun warming my neck and hair, popping warm blueberries in my mouth and feeling them explode with juice, the comfortable conversation my husband and I shared, and especially the sound that the blueberries made when they hit the bottom of the white buckets.  It reminded me of one of my all time favorite children's book, Blueberries for Sal.  If you are not familiar with this book, I would highly recommend it.  I have great memories of my mother reading it to me.

It really is a great book!

After two hours of picking, we finally felt too hot to continue and walked back to the main part of the farm.  While we had been picking my husband kept encouraging me to keep going by saying that we only had 3-4 pounds and we could pick more.  WELL, we ended up with 18 pounds of blueberries!!!!  That is a lot of blueberries.  As my husband said, "We have blueberries coming out of our blueberries!"  We spent all of Sunday freezing most of them, and I made a yummy blueberry cobbler. 

This is only two of three bags we brought back, and one is already missing half of it's berries.

Freezing the berries took a long time because we froze them flat on a cookie sheet and then put them in a container.

Overall it was a very fun experience, mainly because of the great time I got to spend with my husband outside doing something we both enjoyed, and also the blueberries!

The yummy cobbler I made, overloaded with fresh blueberries.

There was only a little bit of crust and lots of warm, gushy blueberries.