Berry Picking....

In the spirit of enjoying every season to it's fullest, and helping our boys to understand where our food comes from, I just had to take the family to go berry picking. All through blueberry season other things kept coming up, and the weekends were wonderfully full with more pressing needs. But as the end of summer closed in upon us, I started scouring the websites looking for great opportunities to get out and pick something (yeah, at this point it didn't really matter what it was - I just wanted to go).

So early one Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago, we headed out to Sauvie Island Farms. They had end-of-season blueberries (most of which weren't quite ready to go yet), beautiful, tart blackberries, sweet corn, and peaches. Max was a very diligent picker (when he wasn't making friends with the kiddos one row over), but Luke was another story.

Luke LOVES his "bla-blas". Originally this was his word for blueberries, but it has come to mean any type of fruit that might be classified as a berry. He sees them and loses all self control - they must be his. So with great glee he ran to those bushes and started shoving anything he could get his hands on straight into his mouth. NO attention to ripeness or quantity. Restraint was not his that day. Dan and I both began to worry about the belly ache that was going to follow this episode, so I put him in the Ergo (which, at 21 months he still adores) on my back. His access was limited, but not the desire. Most of my picking time was spent being clubed in the head by a small child shrieking "BLA-BLA! BLA-BLA!!". Needless to say, we cut it a little short. Then Dan was gracious enough to take both boys on a tractor ride so I could get the blackberries picked.

We rounded out the morning wandering through corn stalks looking for corn to freeze, and meandering through the peach trees for some Red Havens. Luke was able to get himself calmed down (although we carefully hid the picked berries in the wagon as to not awaken the beast) enough to help with both of those, and Max was the perfect little farmhand. While the weather was chilly and the produce was not at it's prime, we were all thankful for our little excursion. Max has asked several times when we get to go again, and our delicious bounty is either safely in our freezer or made into a delicious meal.

And it helps this country girl-turned-urban mama to get out to the farm. Sets the spirit right, you know?

Here's a few shots from the day: