Some people have various fruits and berries growing all over their property. They just need to go outside and pick some. (I’m looking at you, Kristin.) Some of us have to drive over an hour each way to go to pick-your-own blueberry farms. We tell the kids it’s a fun outing, but really we’re just bringing them along for the child labor.
And you know what? Kids have no stamina when it comes to walking around an orchard picking berries from above your head. You’d think they could have told me that in advance.
So this past weekend we headed out to Pennline Farm in Pierpoint. There we met Carol, who was helping her mother Barbara run things. Carol brought us a bunch of milk jugs with the tops cut off, and some lengths of rope to tie them to our waists.
Then she told us what we’d find, including: several varieties, some of which had a slight cinnamon flavor; a loudspeaker playing bird calls to keep other birds out of the field (this scared the crap out of Jenn when it went off just above her head); and — if we looked really carefully — some blackberry vines mixed in with a couple of the blueberry bushes.
Ana and Winnie were all smiles when we started.
And the berries were looking good.
I was reaching in to grab a berry when I noticed a couple of Japanese beetles … umm … occupied on the stem right where I was about to grab.
Jenn found the blackberries. Check out the thorns on those things.
I tried one of the red ones. Holy cow, were they tart.
About an hour-and-a-half in, I was a bit past a half-gallon.
And the girls were tired of playing migrant laborer for the day. So we went and said “Hi” to Carol’s dog, Ginger I think was her name.
Carol tried to get Ginger in the picture, but she kept laying down. Tough life she’s got.
See that spec in the distance there? That’s Heather, who brought us out to the farm. Thanks, Heather!
On the way out we saw the wild turkeys.
Just after I got this shot of Mama and a chick, Papa and the other five siblings ran across before I could get the camera back up.
So what was our total haul? A bit more than a gallon.
Washed, and dried overnight …
… and into some zip-top bags in the fridge.
We’ll be doing some smoothies, some ice cream, then freezing the rest. There’s no way we can go through this much before they go bad.
If you want to do any picking, look up Pennline Farm and call ahead. They had a late frost this year, so the harvest is way down. You don’t want to get all the way out there and everything was just picked over.
