Gone Pickin': Part One

It is not news to most of you that we recently went peach and blackberry picking. I have such wonderful childhood memories of u-pick farms when we lived in Maryland and I wanted to be sure Nathan could create some memories of his own. I was also inspired by the $0.87/lb price tag on these organic peaches. With the cost of living up here and the price of just-fruit type jams we go through in this house, I could not pass it up. Our wonderful neighbors (who will be moving soon) decided to join us for the fun, hoping to make going-away gifts for some friends with the peaches they gathered.


So we piled in our cars one Saturday morning and headed to...

We grabbed some buckets and hopped on the tractor ride to the fields.

Nathan was slightly more excited than Mrs. Neighbor who was talking herself out of the throws of morning sickness. What a good sport, right? And truth be told he wasn't excited about farm life. He was excited by the cheez-its our neighbors brought for him.

The first stop were the blackberry bushes. Wow, did they taste good warmed by the sun! You can't see how purple Nathan's mouth and teeth are in this picture. They matched his shirt.

Look at those fat berries! Mmmm!

 Then the tractor drove us to the peach orchard. So exciting!

 After an hour of picking in 100 degree weather, we hopped crawled back on to the tractor ride and rode back to the main house and barn.

Silly picture with Nathan's new best buddies. Boy are we going to miss them!

 Great Country Farms has TONS of other fun things to do. We got lost in all the attractions for four hours! Play grounds, a mining station, animals, a jumping pillow, corn pit with lots of trucks for digging and dumping, go carts (the free, pedal kind), rope swings, and the list goes on.

After a very long morning we headed back home, stopping at Target to pick up 12 more canning jars after realizing that the 20 lbs of peaches we were shooting for quickly became 70 lbs at the cash register. Oops. What in the world was I going to do with 250 peaches?

You will have to wait until next time.  

The suspense is killing you, I know.