Berry picking

I took Ryan berry picking after Memorial Day weekend. The patch had been closed for a few days for the holiday, so I figured it would be good picking. It probably was not the smartest idea for a 9 month pregnant gal to drive 45 minutes away to do such a strenuous and labor intensive activity in the 90 degree heat with a toddler who may or may not cooperate, but nevertheless...we went. The farm had strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries. We started with strawberries. Ryan has been to pick strawberries before, so she knows the rules - only pick the red ones, and we put them in the bucket - we DO NOT eat them! If you ask her when we eat them she will reply "at home! Wash em!" meaning that I have drilled it in her head that we wait until until we get home to eat them because we have to wash them first. She was not really interested in picking the strawberries. She nabbed a few here and there, but for the most part she just followed me up and down the aisle looking around at everything. Strawberry picking is hard work when you are pregnant. They are basically on the ground, and there is constant bending over, standing up, scooting down 2 feet, and bending over again. We finally filled our bucket and moved on to blueberries. Ryan was an absolute PRO at picking the blueberries! Blueberries are more of a bush, and everyone just picks at eye level, so the best ones were actually down low on her level. I told her ONE time to pick the blue ones and leave the green ones and pink ones. She walked up to me 10 minutes later with a little basket half full of perfectly ripe blueberries. She LOVED it, and it just melted my heart. The blackberries were at the completely opposite end of the farm, so we had to walk maybe a quarter mile down to them. We were getting SO hot and so tired that we had to stop by the car to get some water and have a diaper change. The blackberries were NO FUN to pick. They didn't have many rows of them, and what they did have was completely picked over. We quickly figured out that people tend to go for the middle of the middle aisles...something in our brains just tells us that the outside will be where everyone goes first so we think that a random spot out in the middle is the best place....it is NOT. We started on a more central aisle and got almost nothing. I was starting to think we would never fill our bucket. But then we went to the very edge of the patch, and again, down low on Ryan's level there were the biggest and best blackberries I have ever seen. I'm talking fully ripe, 2 inch long berries, in clusters of 4 and 5! It was really hard work...there was another little girl in our aisle and Ryan just kind of stood back watching her as I labored away. I was basically crawling on the ground lifting up the vines to find the berries underneath. 

she is not eating them, she is licking a smooshed one off of her hand

picking strawberries

getting in the blackberries

Finally, after 2 hours, we had filled our buckets. Luckily our car was right next to the blackberry bushes, so we just hopped in and drove down to the little shack where you pay...I did not have any more walking left in me! I was absolutely dripping with sweat!

Well, needless to say I had more berries than I knew what to do with. I knew I wanted to make some strawberry basil jam, and I got 3 jars out of half of my strawberries. I saved the really good looking strawberries or Ryan to eat, and turned the mushier looking ones into fruit leather - which TOTALLY failed. I was SO mad! I found a recipe online, followed it to the tee, and my fruit roll ups came out stuck to the wax paper which was stuck to the pan.  NO hope of salvaging ANY of it. $5 and lots of good berries down the drain. I had never made a blueberry pie before and wanted to try it, but I just wanted a small one and didn't have a small pan, so I made a flat blueberry pie. You basically just roll out some crust, put your filling right in the middle, then fold the crust edges up around it. Voila! A tiny little pie! We saved the rest of the blueberries to eat plain because they were phenomenal on their own. Then I made a blackberry cobbler to freeze and a small one to eat one night. We all had blue teeth! 

the fruits of our labor!!

strawberry basil jam

flat pie with blueberries and blackberries

I would not do that again being this pregnant. It was WAY too hot and if Ryan had decided to be fussy that day,  I can't even imagine how awful it would have been. But she was perfect, and a ton of fun to watch and hang out with. We survived. So it was a good day. I really can not tell you how much I cherish that memory of her in the blueberries. I will never forget how great she was at it, and her repeating "pick blue ones, leave pink ones! No green ones! Eat at home!" Plus, she looked like a little farmer in her super cute overalls :)