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Family activity is ripe for blueberry picking
(by Lauri Gross - July 07, 2010)
VITAL TRIFLE, BY LAURI GROSS
Family activity is ripe for blueberry picking
Two miles from our house, there is a blueberry farm. Eleven months of the year, it appears dormant but remains charming and quaint, with its red-roofed barns, crops in neat rows, surrounding forests and a weathered country road winding past.
In July, it is all that and more. In July, the blueberries are ripe, and the quaint farm becomes a busy place -- not quite bustling but definitely humming. The grassy area between barns is designated as the parking lot, and sometimes it is even roped off to indicate where rows of vehicles should form. There are "Pick your own blueberries" signs posted at nearby intersections.
The farmers set up tables in one barn, on which they will weigh your blueberries and on which they display homemade beeswax candles, Geauga County maple syrup, jams and other items for sale. In recent years, they have added a cooler containing cold drinks and frozen treats and expanded their crop area to include pick-your-own raspberries.
We have picked blueberries there each summer since my kids were toddlers. They are now aged 12 and 14. In our first years, we would drive to the farm to pick. Each of us would carry our own bucket. The kids were always eager for the outing but didn't last too long, as they found themselves swatting flies, tripping over roots, getting scratched on branches and getting just a little too hot and thirsty.
Along the way, they learned to spot the fattest, darkest berries and the bushes with the most to give. They learned that an accidentally spilled bucket was not the end of the world and that the farmers didn't mind if we sampled some blueberries while we picked. They also learned that, if you spin a half-full bucket just so, the blueberries don't fall out, due to something called centrifugal force. (Or is it centripetal? I never know which.) And they learned that it takes a lot of blueberries to make a pie.
Early on, the farm was run by the grandfatherly owner. At that time, there were no tables displaying candles or jugs of maple syrup. There was no cooler. Often, there was no farmer -- just a hand-scrawled note inviting us to pick blueberries and leave some money in the bucket, which we always did. Since this man went on to meet his maker, his descendants have kept the enterprise running with the same generous spirit.
There are many blueberry farms in the area, and we have tried several, but the one nearest our house is the one to which we always return.
Today, we usually ride bikes or walk to the blueberry farm, but, however we get there, walking those rows of blueberries with a bucket swinging on one elbow, the experience is worth the effort. It's the perfect time to think whatever thoughts need thinking or to think of nothing at all except for that next perfect, fat blueberry. As the first berries plink into the bottom of the otherwise empty bucket, you can't help but think, "This will take forever. I'll never pick enough." But you keep going, and that hollow "plink" is soon silenced by the layers of squishy berries that cushion the drop of each one subsequently added.
Often, you can hear scattered bits of conversation from groups of other pickers. From hearing some folks with European accents, some Asian and some Amish, I can conclude picking blueberries has a universal appeal.
It seems, while picking blueberries, our biggest problems include: whether there is a bathroom at the farm (usually a port-a-potty is available), whether a family has picked enough berries for a pie, whether it is the brother or the sister who discovered the highest-yielding blueberry bush in the whole world, which child started throwing blueberries at the other first, whether someone in the family is eating more than they are picking and whether we should keep picking if it rains.
While we dwell on these issues, we are joined by forces something akin to those which keep the magic in Winnie-the-Pooh's 100-acre wood. Apparently, these are the same forces keeping the real world at bay while we pick.
When we are done picking and approach the barn again, we all guess how many pounds of berries we have picked. We empty everyone's berries into one bucket and place it on the farmer's scale. During this time, there is usually some chatting about the day's yield. The farmer talks about how the weather has been making it a good year for blueberries or a disappointing one.
Then we pay -- a tiny fraction of what blueberries cost at a supermarket -- pour the berries into our own container and make our way home, hoping we don't eat so many on the way that we don't have enough for whatever blueberry treats we were planning.
We try to make at least a pie or two every July, along with blueberry pancakes, blueberry bread and a number of other blueberry recipes we have collected. Last summer I made a point of freezing one zip-lock bag full of berries every time we picked so that we could enjoy them the rest of the year, while we waited for July to return so we could start all over again.
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