Blueberries!

Lots of people on their way OUT while we were going in.

Chuck picking berries -- IN a row -- not much room to walk

No problem finding ripe berries

Weighing my box

Chuck's box was a bit fuller than mine

Mmmmm...

One of my favorite books that I checked out of the library when I was a kid was Blueberries for Sal. ( I have a copy of it which I will read to my GRANDS one of these days.) Right now there are WAY too many words per page -- especially for Maggie. She wants just a few words per page and then wants to turn the page; Emmett will allow a few more words before he wants to go do something else. Heather gets books for them from the library and they both love to sit down and read books -- and we love reading to them. We ask Emmett to go get a book to read and he will go find one of his favorites; Maggie will respond to the same request -- usually bring a different book that is her favorite. We are amazed at how well they understand what we say to them.

So why am I talking about that book? Keep reading. Today I decided I would do some sewing -- that was "Plan A." Then I remembered that Chuck wanted to go and pick blueberries. So I looked in our little "U-pick" catalog and noticed that Mountainview Blueberry Farm was open today -- still in the 1st picking -- so off we went north to Snohomish (Plan B). It wasn't exactly like the hill in the book, but it sure had lots of delicious berries.

When we first arrived at the address, we thought there wasn't a crowd; only one car in the parking lot -- then we drove down the hill, following the "parking" signs and we were amazed -- LOTS of people were out on this cool cloudy morning to pick blueberries. We got our buckets and off we went. It was a little jaunt into the field, but once we got there we were surprised to see how many berries were on the bushes. They were LOADED. There were so many berries that the vines were all drooped over into the rows. It was hard to even make our way into the rows. We found out that we wouldn't have to move very far to pick all the blueberries we wanted. Just stop, pick up a branch from the ground, and start filling the bucket. So nice!

After about 45 minutes I had picked 4 pounds of berries and my little can was full. I told Chuck I was ready to go. When we came out of the row, he had picked TEN pounds of berries in the same amount of time. Okay, so he's an experienced berry picker. When he was a kid he was paid to pick berries. He thinks he got 5-cents for every quart of raspberries he picked. And some days he picked all day long. Well, when I was in high school I detassled corn! (Only mid-westerners have probably heard of that term.) So I guess I do have SOME farming experience.

So now we have about 14 pounds of blueberries. We will eat some (we already ate some while we were picking -- there were some REALLY big ones and oh-so -sweet. I think I will make some blueberry jam, freeze some for blueberry pancakes and maybe make a pie. And share some with Roger ( "Denise doesn't even like them).