One Pick, Two Pick, I Pick, U-Pick

I've always imagined that I would love to own a farm, live on a farm, work a farm. Not so much anymore. Don't get me wrong. I know all the perks of farm life (not firsthand). There's just two things that I really can't get over. Number one, bugs. Number two, sweat. Maybe I would do fine living on a farm in Svalbard, where it's so cold that I imagine I wouldn't have to deal with either of the two. But farming is an important part of all of our lives, whether we live on a farm or not. And it's important to me that my kids know where their food comes from.

First order of business to talk about is our summer plans. We aren't putting the kids into any summer programs (except for VBS), but it's important to me that we still do some learning with all our "free time". So we will concentrate on one topic a week or so, and learn what we can about it through research and hopefully through hands- on experience. Farming was one of those topics. So it looks like we are on course with our summer work. This leads into the second order of business.

U-Pick farms. Uh...What an awesome idea! This is my kind of farming. I was forced to do some things that I don't usually like. Things like having high grass brush against my bare legs, putting my hands very close to ants and other crawlies, and watching my kid throw dirt up into the air only to have that dirt land in his hair, on his face, and down his shorts. Farm living is not the life for me. But for a few hours today, it was (sort of). We found a little u-pick strawberry farm. It is the end of the season, so pickings were slim, but we walked away with 5 pounds @ $1.79/pound. The price isn't better than the store, but the experience was great. My kids have now seen what a strawberry plant looks like. And they can tell you that it doesn't look like a plastic container sitting on a shelf. They have experience eating a strawberry straight from strawberry plant. I have an appreciation for all those laborers that pick those berries that we consume, working in the heat and with the bugs.

Next was a u-pick blueberry farm. This place was a little out of the way, but worth the drive in the end. Here I learned that there are more than 20 varieties of blueberries! That blew my mind. To me a blueberry is a blueberry is a blueberry. But not so. Some are juicier, some have thick skins, some are tart, some are sweet, some have thin skins. I also learned that blueberries grow in a bush (some bushes were rather big and resembled trees). This place has 20 acres and they don't spray the bushes or the berries with pesticides. Annie and Troy had a heyday stuffing their bellies full of berries straight off the bush. The boys enjoyed running in the open spaces. We left with 5 pounds of berries @ $2/pound. That's a lot of blueberries.

We drove home, looking forward to showers and air conditioning. We drove home with a better understanding of where our food comes from. We drove home with an appreciation for farms and what they provide us with. We drove home with a fonder love for nature and all her bounty.