Blueberries!

We got up and out of the house this morning by 7:30. It was an hour later than I wanted to be out, but getting out was the plan. We headed off to The Blueberry Barn to pick blueberries. They were $12 per gallon, and just two weeks ago, I paid $20 for a gallon at the farmer's market in town, so I felt like this was not only going to be fun but I was going to save money. As we came around the corner in view of the parking area, I was taken aback with how many people were already there. The Barn is only open from 6:30 to 11:00 because of the heat in the afternoon. So we parked and walked up to the barn and were handed our gallon buckets that had a long piece of twine attached to the handle. OK, I have to come clean and tell you I have never picked blueberries, so I had no idea what the twine was for. The lady was so sweet, and I believe she could tell I couldn't figure it out. So she said, "You tie it around your waist, just like a picker." Oh, so the bucket is in front of you! You can use two hands to pick and not bend over to the ground! I tell you what, it was like I had seen the invention of the light bulb.

The sweet lady told us to walk down the middle of the field until we found a guy in a green hat, who would tell us where to pick. Cool. I hated to pick someplace that had already been picked or was off limits. Alex and I found the guy in the green hat, and we began to fill up our gallon buckets that were tied around our waist. A little time had passed, and I believe it was four generations of females that came to pick on the other side of my bushes. I don't know how many of you have done this before, but blueberries grow on a bush that is about as tall as I am. This year has been a bumper crop, and these bad boys are just covered, all the way to the ground. This being said, you don't have to be a grownup to pick berries. These two little girls who were sisters started out pretty strong, picking and counting, and then one of them found a spider. It was all over except for the whining about spiders and how sore one of their wrists was. The girls were taken out of the field, and were replaced by a couple that had never done this before either. However, compared to the man, Alex is a champ! The man was walking around complaining about how close together the berries were growing to each other and how hard it would be to do this job if the picker were blue-and-green color blind. I was reminded about what I have been reading in some of my books, that silence is something that we really don't know how to do any more. 

All in all, it was a great morning, and we got two gallons of berries. The really cool part of our picking morning was that they had recipes at the checkout station. I picked up one of each, and I am cooking a blueberry pound cake as we speak. I will take pictures, and if it turns out as good as I think it will, I will get you the recipe. I may be OK without cukes this year. I love this fruit stuff!