There is a local blueberry farm about a half hour's drive from home. Every year that we've gone it has been more and more crowded as more and more people find out about it. I decided that a Friday morning would be best because we would beat the weekend crowds, yet the berry bushes would still have a chance to recover from the previous weekend's pickers.
So we had a quick breakfast and loaded into the car. It was 9:30am when we left, which is insanely early for me to make it out in public on a non-school day. It was a fairly quick drive and the weather was nice. About half an hour later we were on the dirt road leading to the blueberry farm. A suspicious number of cars for the time of day were headed in the opposite direction, and many of them contained kids. I took it as a warning sign that many berry pickers had come before us and were already leaving. I told the girls that it would be hot and crowded, and maybe not many blueberries.
The next warning sign was that the street leading up to the berry farm was jam packed with cars parked on all sides. I wearily parked the car after the last car and got the girls trudging towards the entrance. As luck would have it, we were almost to the entrance when I noticed several parking spots closer to the entrance were open - perhaps left by some of those cars we had seen exiting earlier? I made the girls walk all the way back to the car so that I could move it to the closer parking spot. I explained to a confused Sparkle that it would be easier to make the long walk back to the car when we were fresh, rather than after standing in the heat picking berries.
Once inside the farm, we each got a bucket and we headed down the rows of bushes. We hiked past the front bushes which were already picked clean, in search of berries. At first I didn't see any berries and considered just going home away from the heat. However, Sparkle convinced me to press on. Eventually we found a cluster of trees with a few remaining berries. I told the girls to pick and eat as much as they liked (which the farm allows). I don't think that their buckets ever held more than a dozen berries at a time. I tied my bucket to my fanny pack and started to "become one with the tree." The berries were so sparse and I'm so short that the only way to get a decent amount of berries was to immerse myself in the branches to pull down the topmost branches and pick from them. The girls were a bit luckier - they managed to squirm between the bushes and find a "blueberry forest" where they entertained themselves.
I let the girls roam and pick and eat freely, while I concentrated on filling my bucket. Occasionally I'd call out "Marco" and have the girls answer "Polo" to make sure that they hadn't wandered too far. Mostly, I could hear them playing that the "blueberry forest" was their home, and the branches their roof, and Sparkle was the mama and Glitter was the baby, and Sparkle foraged for berries to feed into baby Glitter's eager mouth.
There was an occasional breeze, but the day was hot. I was glad that I brought the sippy cups for the girls in my fanny pack. It was much easier than toting a wagon. The girls downed both sippy cups and never had to go potty. I was also glad that Sparkle's hair was up in a pony tail, and my was up too. (Glitter's hair is too short to put up.)
Glitter eventually got too tired, even though Sparkle would try to find her shady spots and bring her berries. Fear of hot, tired, cranky girls let me to abandon plans of filling my bucket, and we left after picking for about an hour and a half. I bought my three fourths of a small bucket full of blueberries, and the girls carried out an unknown amout of blueberries in their tummies.
Apparently the girls had eaten quite a bit because neither one was hungry, even though it was lunchtime. I had brought fixings for peanut butter sandwiches, but decided to just pile into the car and crank up the air conditioning. We made it home and then Sparkle made the pb&j sandwiches in cool comfort.
Next up - naps for everyone so that we'll have energy to enjoy the free concert tonight.
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