blue berries

Family came to visit Sunday night.

Arline and Sid and their three “home kids.”

They arrived fairly late and were to leave early, but in taking a short cut they tore up a tire on the mini van and Sid had to wait for the tire store to open, so they did not leave as early as they had hoped.

Our house is a small 3 bedroom model. We sleep in one, one is open and the third has a hide a bed and I use the space for my inside the house studio. Sid, who has a rather fragile back, says he sleeps well on the hide a bed, and I am glad, but I had to move a bunch of stuff to make room for it to open!

When they walked in the front door (Jessica text me when she was about 30 minutes away, so I knew pretty close to when they would arrive), there was lots of hugs and then a couple boxes of --- BLUEBERRIES.

Big beautiful blueberries. Some from Arline and family, some from Lora and family. A couple days earlier both families had picked from the same berry farm. Between the two famiies, in a morning, they picked about a hundred and fifty pounds!

Sometimes we have driven up and picked with them, but we did not this time.

So last night while we visited, I rearranged our smallish freezer, washed and bagged several gallons of blueberries.

Those little wonders do not grow easily around these parts. Our soil is miles too alkaline, but they do better up near where both of their families live. I understand that the owner does some magic to make the soil a bit more acid, and whatever he does it is work.

The “patch” is multiple acres big, in a little ravine out of a little town in northwest Oregon, and it is pick your own patch. Start as soon as it is light and be gone by the time the sun is high. Fun few hours.

So, Thanks Lora and Arline and Cliff and Matthew and Brianna and Jessica and Andrew and Amy.

We are going to eat well this winter! Again.