On blueberries, blackberries, and being wrong....

Saturday afternoon, after the central air was installed, I got an itch to start canning.  Lately I have felt terribly behind in the preservation department.  This is largely due to the devastating weather we had several months ago that wiped out all of our gardens, causing my plants to be behind in production.  And normally where I would be raking in the produce by this point, my cupboards are bare.  (By nature we have a hard time supplying ourselves with fruit here because of space contraints, so every year we know where to go to get fresh grown berries that we can preserve for use later in the year.)  Sadly our favorite local farm didn't have any black raspberries that survived the flood, and their strawberry production was very limited this season.  

On a very last minute whim The Reluctant Farmer and I decided to drive 45 minutes south to pick blueberries.  We had never done this before, and I honestly had no clue what I was doing, but we figured it out.

Reluctant Farmer:  "Honey, have you ever picked blueberries before?"

Me:  "Nope.  But I want to pick 20 pounds in the 45 minutes prior to them closing, so let's move!"

RF:  "I don't mean to squelch your goal, but there is no way we can pick 20 pounds of berries in 45 minutes!"

Me:  "Yes there is!  This will be like taking candy from a baby!"

And in a typical Reluctant Farmer manner she said no more....

I tell you I was a woman on a mission.  I ran from bush to bush tossing berries in my bucket, looking like a bumble bee with ADHD!  (It was then I realized the real reason we would be washing these berries prior to use was not to remove toxins from them, but instead to rinse off my sweat.)

We did it though, we managed to pick 10 pounds of blueberries in 45 minutes. 

Did you catch that?!  

If not read the small print..

 (The Reluctant Farmer was right.  It is impossible to pick 20 pounds of blueberries in 45 minutes...)  

That's okay though, because I happily went home with my blueberries as well as several pints of blackberries and all are properly stored for the winter, or until next week if I keep looking at these pictures....