Friday morning Chuck and I made the short trip to Allen’s farm to pick blueberries. We bought a small chest freezer the day before and couldn’t wait to fill it with summer goodies we could enjoy all winter long. Chuck and I had never even seen a blueberry bush, much less picked them…so this was an adventure for us!
The Allen’s are obviously trusting folks because the picking is strictly on the honor system…but then I guess there aren’t many blueberry thieves around here!
Chuck chose a couple of buckets out of the truck box and we were ready to pick some blueberries. The weather was in the mid 80’s with almost no humidity…the perfect day to be outside.
There were probably about 50 or so bushes out there. Some of the ones closest to the drive had been picked clean of most of the ripe berries, but they were full of unripe ones that would be ready in a couple of days. We walked just a few rows back and hit the jackpot! The bushes were loaded with the most beautiful, healthy blueberries anybody could ask for. We started picking…plunk, plunk, plunk…this was fun…but I couldn’t help but notice the contrast between the size of my bucket and the size of the blueberries!
After a few minutes I forgot about how empty my bucket looked and just enjoyed being together… talking as we picked…in a beautiful setting… on one of the most perfect days of the year…not to mention tasting a berry or two!
We picked for about an hour and went back to the honor system truck box and paid for our 5 quarts of berries and put our buckets up. We brought a basket to carry our blueberries home.
What a great way to spend a morning! We got home and had the blueberries washed and in the freezer less than a hour after we picked them! They’ll bring back memories of a sunny summer day at the blueberry patch with every taste this fall and winter…and we still have a couple of more weeks to go back and pick some more!! Stay simple and eat well!
Beautiful. we did the same with our family at Denmark, Western Australia. The grower has the same self picking system. He told us not to wash the blueberries, he uses no chemicals, and the sheen on them is the natural glow.