So today was blueberry day. Blueberries could quite possibly be my most favorite of all time. Berry or fruit. Though a good sweet, juicy peach is right up there. But we’ll get back to those. Last year I stumbled upon (quite literally. I got lost and accidentally pulled in to it) a fantastic pick-your-own blueberry farm. When we pulled in last year there were 4 guys (with probably 7 teeth between them) leaning on the back of a pick-up truck smoking. They all sported mullets, so I instantly deemed the place “Mullet Farms.” We didn’t hear any banjo music, so we comenced to picking blueberries. At $1.00 a pound, we couldn’t go wrong. Well, we ended up coming back the next weekend and, all totaled, we picked 48 pounds of blueberries. They would have been a fantastic deal, too, if I hadn’t gotten a $275 speeding ticket on the second trip.

That’s all background information. Luckily I’m basically a homing pigeon so once I’ve been somewhere once, I can always find it again. This year I drove (the speed limit!!!) right to it. I dared not take pictures of the residents. If I had, you’d understand why. But here’s a little bit of what the place looks like:

IMGP9107

Sadly we didn’t get there as early as I would have liked, and while it was hot, it was mercifully overcast, so not unbearable. What does it say about me and my acclimation to this climate that 90 degrees and humid as a hot tub is “not unbearable” as long as the sun isn’t out? That’s nuts. I wasn’t raised that way. Anyway. Just in case you think I did all the picking myself, I did have help.

IMGP9105

Ok, so not that much help. But I did manage to come away with a healthy 23.5 pounds of blueberries. Still $1.00 a pound. Still fantastic. I’m still not telling you where it is. But here’s what 23.5 pounds of blueberries looks like in its raw state:

IMGP9118

Oh stop it! The bucket was basically new, washed, and hadn’t been used for unclogging a toilet or anything. That I know of. Anyway, I’m washing and freezing most of them, but there will be at least one or two blueberry pies, and I did manage to make 23 jars of Blueberry-Peach Jam tonight. Sadly, it doesn’t seem to have ‘jelled’ so it will likely be used for ice cream and waffles, but it is to die for. See?

IMGP9119

That’s 8 cups of fresh-picked blueberries and 8 cups of fresh peaches, a metric-butt-load of sugar, etc. all starting to cook. And here’s the end of my blueberry day:

IMGP9126

Tomorrow morning I’ll make blueberry/peach scones. And next weekend we may go back for another 23 or 25 pounds of blueberries. Maybe. I go from swinging a pick-axe and moving 6.5 tons of stone and rock to this weekend canning jams. And turning bowls on the wood-lathe in between. Sometimes I give myself whiplash.