Blueberry Picking

I often get ideas in my head on things I want to do that will be good for family fun and memories.  Sometimes I actually follow through on those ideas and make them happen.  For instance, our family went to an apple orchard last fall because I thought it would fun for the whole family, and it was great (see that blog entry here).  We all loved it.  So recently, I got it in my head that I wanted to go pick summer fruits.  By the time I thought of it, all strawberry farms were closed so I decided on blueberries.  I found a website (http://www.pickyourown.org/ if you're interested) that lets you find local places to pick your own fruits and veggies.  A little research time on that site, and I found what I thought was a little farm in Hiram which is about 30 minutes away from our home.  So this morning, Bama and I took the girls (Ryan is in Alaska right now) out to go blueberry picking.  I'll be honest, in my head was a picture of a quaint little farm; basically a smaller scale of the apple orchard we visited.  I was wrong.  We arrived at a family's home about 10:00; it was in the middle of a country neighborhood, but it wasn't a farm for sure.  There was a poster board on the front porch (along with their own honey that they were selling) with instructions on how to pick, pay for and freeze blueberries.  There was another car there with a couple of individuals which made us feel a little better, but we were a little unsure of ourselves.  We decided to just go with it and start picking!  Turns out, even though it wasn't exactly what I was imagining (it's a LOT hotter now than last October in the North GA mountains), it was a fun time.  I'm really glad we went, and we now have a half-gallon of blueberries frozen.  Please let me know if you have any great recipes calling for blueberries; I'm searching!

They had three rows of blueberry bushes in their front yard.

 Mia was excited to pick and show off the blueberries.  She enjoyed eating them too.  The poster board sign said they do not use any kind of pesticides on their blueberries, so they were safe to eat right then; we couldn't resist trying a few.

 Lily enjoyed being in charge of the collection bucket as she picked.

 Liz showing off a handful of freshly picked berries.

 Just a picture to prove I was there too!

 Mia searching a branch for blueberries that were actually blue.  Not all of the berries were ripe yet, but the girls did a very good job of only picking the blue ones and not the red, not ripe ones.

 Lily studied the branches to get the right ones.

 Poor Mia was so hot after awhile.  She found a nice little shady spot to sit and pick.

Cleaning off a bush.

 Examining their loot.

 Having fun!

 Filling up the bucket.

 Mia got a lift from Bama to reach the berries a little higher up.

 By the end, Mia was picking the little yellow flowers instead of berries.

A quick picture before measuring and paying for the berries (you can see we're standing in front of their house).  Lily seemed pretty excited, and Mia couldn't wait to dig in and eat them up.

Overall, this was a fun little excursion that I'm glad we took.  More family memories made, and that's what I was after!  We continued our fun after this by stopping by the Dollar Tree (a favorite of the girls) where we picked up more 4th of July decorations; they can't wait for America's birthday!  Then we had lunch at "the Tokyo restaurant" as the girls call it.  We love going to hibachi restaurants!  It was delicious as always, and the girls did really well watching the chef and eating a good lunch.  They both did really well with their kid-friendly chopsticks too; I was impressed!  This was a fun way to start a nice long weekend!