Saturday, August 20, 2011

I now have blue finger tips

Early this morning, especially for a Saturday, a friend picked me up and we made our way to a blueberry field.  I've grown up blueberry picking, in the woods, with my mother.  We'd sit in the moss and pick little wild blueberries.  What I did today was nothing like that.  I had heard about blueberry farms, but had never been at one. 
We made our way to Lachenaie, about thirty minutes from Montréal.  When we got there, at about 9am, there was only two other people in the field.  We picked these babies for two hours, to fill a 4L basket full.  To fill my basket it took me over two hours, non stop.  By the time my basket was full, the sun was in full bloom and I was sweating bullets.  Granted it might have taken me a little longer because I ate a few.  I had to see (or rather taste) if they were as good as they looked!

I had never seen so many at one time.  It was quite a pleasant outing, even despite the heat, bugs, etc. to sit down ona little stool and simply pick these babies off the branches.  Some were as big a thumb nail, and sweeeet!

We were lucky in our timing, since the farmer told us it was his last weekend to be opened for public picking.  I would have hate to have missed out on this.  I salivate just thinking of the muffins, cookies, etc. I'll be making with these.  While at the farm I also bought some fresh raspberries, strawberries (so darn sweet, it's unreal), some fresh corn and some honey. I just love this time of year!  It's so yummy!

Since I've been home, for the last hour or so, I've washed them, to get rid of the dirt and little bugs I might of brought home, and some are already drying on a dish cloth.  Guess what we'll be having for dessert tonight!

3 comments:

flurrious said...

What fun! Your post made me Google pick-your-own farms in the area and we have a lot of blueberry farms near here. I might still have time to go since our summer started really late this year. I am dying for blueberry pie now.

Robert the Skeptic said...

My wife Nancy goes NuTz for Blueberries. There is a bush in the NEIGHBOR'S yard... she sneaks over there and takes the blueberries! They don't care, they don't even mow their yard.

Her dad used to work at a USDA agricultural research facility, they have a huge blueberry variety collection. If nobody picks them they go to waste, so she and her dad went out there last week and filled a 5-gallon bucket with blueberries. Guess what kind of pancakes we had this weekend??

comebacknikki said...

Oh, fun! My parents used to take me blueberry picking every summer (I grew up in Michigan, where the blueberries are plentiful). It was always fun & we had tons of awesome blueberry treats throughout the entire year... and now I have wonderful memories. :-)