Saturday

mia ~

So you think I've gone MIA ~ wrong ... I'm still here ... it's just that I've been super busy.  Busy picking berries and keeping up with the kids celebrating birthdays and anniversaries, camping and a class reunion.  I've been making jelly and canning pickles.  All kinds of distractions going on :)

Dear Hubby had four days off from work and we were on a mission ... picking berries.  It takes LOTS of berries for me to keep up with my jamming.

At Nelson's Berry Farm in Westboro you can pick blueberries as big as quarters.  
We picked 5 gallons of them!  That will make a BIG batch of jelly :)
They have several varieties in their fields. 

 Those berries sure make for a yummy pie too ~
... and some scrumptious jam.

Then we headed into the woods.  We drove for miles through the Chequamegon National Forest and Nicolet National Forest in search of wild black berries.  I just hate buying berries when The Good Lord has them growing in His Garden ... all you have to do is take the time to go and harvest them.


We drove down a lot of gravel roads ...

some of them were pretty narrow ...  more like ATV trails instead of vehicle roadways.
We went uphill and down ...
pass creeks ...
choked off with water hyacinths ...
pass little pot hole lakes ...
This was a nice stopping place for our picnic lunch.

We found some black cherries ... so we picked a gallon of those.




a stem of wild black cherries
BUT .. I needed black berries, not cherries ... but we just couldn't find a good picking of them.

Finally ~ we hit a good patch.  Just follow the bear trails and you don't get too stuck and stabbed by the thorny brush.  When you find good black berry brush in the wild in my neck of the woods you also find signs of bear.  It just makes the berry picking more interesting :) ... a little competition between you and nature to see who gets to the berries first.  We found quite a few patches along the way; but the bear had beaten us to most of them.

We picked and picked and even went back a second day and picked some more.
The picture of them on the stem are pretty small.  We found some that were as big as your thumb and hanging like grapes.



All total ... we ended up with 8 gallons of them! That's a lot of black berries ... but I'll use them up.

We also found a nice batch of highbush cranberries.  They aren't ripe yet but I picked a branch of them anyways.  We'll be heading back into the woods in a few weeks to get some of those if the bear don't beat us to them.

I wish I could take a break today and just enjoy the view out my window ...


... or just sit out on the deck and sip tea and watch the hummingbirds ~



... but I have a big bucket of cucumbers sitting in the kitchen waiting to get turned into pickles :)

~~~~~~~~***~~~~~~~~
1 Thessalonians 4:11-12
 Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, 12so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.



Until next time ...
So it goes in my neck of the woods.
~mel



9 comments:

  1. oh, those berries look SO yummy! you have been busy!

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  2. I don't think I've picked a berry since I was young and I don't even know where any might grow around here. That's quite a nice haul you have!

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  3. Wow! Girl do you ever rest? Do the bears ever bother you? I'm intrigued by those bears.

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  4. My Lord girl, when did you have time for all the other fun things you have been doing. I ain't seen so many berries of all kinds. I love'em all. Not sure I have had wild cherries.

    Awwww, the pie looks great, and it ain't even chocolate.

    You have been one busy BEEVER!

    Love to you and Slim from down in North Carolina for another few weeks.

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  5. Goodness...and you have goodness...
    Now, I just spent an afternoon at the campground with you and you didn't say a word about all those gorgeous berries...my, where in the world did you find those blackberries...they're huge. Farm raised don't count...
    had a great time today even tho you tripped me up
    BlessYourHeart

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  6. Yowzaa!! Shazam!! I figured you had your nose snooping for berries somewhere in the wilds. Great finds!
    'love & hugs from afar'

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  7. All of those berries look so good. I hope you get a break soon and enjoy that beautiful view.

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  8. You are a busy lady. I could not even begin to keep up. Never canned much. Mom made up for it when she was alive. The best dill pickles and bread and butter pickles, plus with a big family corn, green beans and anything else she could get her hands on. No electricity so no freezer. Those were the days.

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  9. You described my perfect day. I love picking berries. I don't have blackberries, but I do get raspberries. Thanks for sharing.

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