Sunday, July 20, 2008

berries and babies

Ever been to a u-pick berry farm?  

Today my first.  Less than an hour north of Missoula is a berry farm that has raspberries and strawberries, and I absolutely loved it.  At $3 a pound, it's questionable just how much money I saved, but I did end up picking exactly 10 pounds of fruit. 
 
Yes, ten pounds. 
 
I couldn't believe it when I lifted the fruit onto the scale.  And I really couldn't believe it when I got it all back to the kitchen and had to process all those strawberries before freezing.  I took Leigh's advice and didn't wash the raspberries - she's done it before and said that she ended up with a solid block of ice that wasn't as flavorful as other frozen raspberries.   I did wash the strawberries because it was easy and because they had more cheat grass seeds and other fluffy things mixed in.  (The whole place is in danger of being overtaken by a charging army of knapweed, but that's another story...)

The highlight of my day, of course, was getting to spend time with two handsome men, both under a year old.   Boy, they were dashing in their berry-picking outfits.  And both moms had the coolest carrying devices for their men.  I tried to climb in Leigh's for the walk back to the car, but Cooper threatened to never smile at me again if I stole his sweet ride.  So I walked.  And the boys smiled.  And I was happy.






















4 comments:

African Kelli said...

Wow! What will you do with all those berries? Make jam? What a fun way to spend a day.

Daisy said...

I've actually never made jam... I don't eat it much so I haven't been motivated to try. But I do eat pie... many many many pieces of pie. So the berries will mostly go into pies.

I do have a fantastic strawberry bread recipe that my mom used to make for me all the time when I was little - I think I'll be making some of that this winter, too!

MereinSC said...

I love picking berries especially strawberries and blackberries.

Those lil' boys are so precious!!

Kassidy Kern said...

Can I request strawberry pie?

Great pictures by the way. You have such a great eye...