Blueberry Pickin'

Most every weekend in the summer, I pile my crew in our minivan, and we go driving around for hours looking for garage sales. It always is great family time, and we have a blast finding nostalgic pieces that inspire story telling back in the van. "I remember Nanny had one just like it.."or "I can't believe we found a Free To Be You And Me record....we use to listen to this over and over again on 8 track!" Needless to say, these are good times and sadly my dh often misses out on the fun because of work. I love taking my mom along on these adventures because she can be quite entertaining and easily works up a good story to keep the kids engaged. The kids are always good for a laugh at my expense too, especially when we pull up to a farm house and their dog comes out barking. The kids will give a little holler to the dog,"Watch out, mom has killed country dogs before, she'll do it again!" Ok...the dog died but I didn't touch it--REALLY! True story, short version...barn sale, barking dog, get out of car, dog falls over dead.(...this is a funny story but I'll have to fill you all in later).

So, by now I'm sure you're thinking...the title of this Blog said Blueberry Pickin' and she won't stop talking about garage saling. Well then, on our tour of St. Joseph County, we came across a Blueberry Ranch called, what else, The Blueberry Ranch! We began making plans for Saturday to go picking. Daddy could come and Mama could use her scooter to get around. It would be a blast picking to our hearts content and making memories!

Saturday comes along and the weather man said that there might be a little sprinkling in the morning and it would all pass over quickly. This was great because according to him it was all going to be over when we were ready to go. We headed out to get my mom and, wouldn't you know it....rain, rain, rain, rain! We were determined that this wasn't going to stop us. The weather man said it would pass, and we just needed to wait it out! Well, about two hours later we said, "Let's just go!" Still with a little sprinkling here and there, we all piled in the minivan again and off we went.

I hadn't been blueberry picking since I was a kid, and we had never been as a family. It exceeded my expectation, and it turned out to be a lot of fun family time. I would suggest it to anyone looking for something to do together on a Saturday. We picked, we grazed, we laughed, we just had a blast. We learned that it can take a long time for one person to fill a five pound bucket of blueberries, and 4 of those buckets takes even longer. Half way through picking, the sun came out and of course...I burned (red head...need I say more). Pick a little, eat a little, pick a little, eat a little. We now have a bunch of beautiful blueberries in the freezer just waiting to be turned into scones, muffins, or fabulous blueberry pancakes!