Fruit picking 2016, Wondy?

Yesterday marked my annual outing to Larriland Farm to pick my body weight in fruit. You might recall my original case for thorns and/or my overzealous death by fruit of previous years. Both memorable and delightful; yesterday was no different.

Isn't my Jack a handsome boy?

We brought along our dear neighbor, Jane, and picked peaches, blackberries, beets and raspberries with various degrees of abandon. Last night I froze twenty cups of blackberries and made one pie and four pints of jam (just two ingredients! blackberries and sugar!). Today, I taught Jane how to can and then put up several pints of raspberry jam (just three ingredients! raspberries, sugar, and lemon juice) myself. 

picked and quickly frozen blackberries- beautiful!

Tomorrow I plan to finish dealing with the berries and pray that the peaches don't ripen until Friday. 

Tonight, as soon as Tom walked in, I retreated to the bath. Where I found this.

Is that Wonder Woman? In a rugby hat? With a mean face? What the heck? #summerstillgoing

Death by fruit

"Honey, what the...? How much fruit is this?"

"Uh, about 60 pounds," I replied, sheepishly happy.

****

In no real way have I "taken it easy" this week. That was my personal dictate, and I have failed. That said, I've had a ball. 

Said ball culminated with a spontaneous pilgrimage to Larriland Farm yesterday. It's a fantastic, sprawling, organic/IPM (integrated pest management) farm in Woodbine, MD, which is about an hour from NW DC. 

Each day, Larriland posts what you can pick that day, and yesterday's options just got me too excited to stay home: Shiro plums, peaches, blackberries...

Unlike my maiden voyage last year (which resulted in A Case for Thorns, a post that was so popular I felt like a real blogger!) for which I planned not at all and thus ended up out at Larriland with dirty teeth, a desperate need for the bathroom and gas, and no food, I this year took the time to ready myself: water, snacks, full gas tank, walked and fed pets.

First to the peach fields for a quick-and-easy 22 pounds. The birds chirped, the bugs buzzed, and I had visions of peach jam, peach pie and brandied peaches floating through my head. Cute kids wove through and around the grove, blissed out as I was. Except for that crying baby. Grr, crying baby. I jest. A bit.

People- seriously(!) on the iPhone camera. Impressive. #nofilter

"Girl, you are rocking this trip!" I told myself as I paid for the peaches and headed to the plum orchard.

Peaches! #nofilter

Once amidst the plum trees, I felt a sting of disappointment: where are they? But then I remembered that not looking up and under is a rookie mistake, and so I did. Shiros everywhere! 

That yellow-flesh varietal is one of my favorite for jam-making. So, as you probably suspect, I picked and picked and picked and then threw in some little purple ones too: Methleys (not my favorite) or Rosas? Not sure but lovely.

Plums! #nofilter

Back to the cashier. New box. On to blackberries and to beat my sixteen-pound pick of last year. Why beat 16 pounds? Well, because Jack's very favorite jam is blackberry and what I made from the non-eaten berries from 2014 didn't last us past this January. This year? 21 pounds.

Blackberries or caviar? #nofilter

I fully intended to go home after blackberries, but the cashier said that raspberry picking was actually pretty good and since I was all the way out in Woodbine, I decided to forge ahead because y'all, I am not lying, little is more magnificent than homemade raspberry jam.

Quick handful of almonds, bunch of water, burst of AC and to the raspberry patch. At this point, many hours in, I was really starting to tire. It was hot, not a cloud in the sky. Gorgeous day but now 1:45, I thought, "Girl, almonds aren't lunch but raspberry jam." Easy calculus and so I fetched another box.

Raspberry plants are thorny, dense and underwhelming from an aesthetic perspective. But the "up and under" mantra will repay you in spades, so I jumped right in. Bees and other beneficial bugs were everywhere but I just said, "Thanks, bugs" and we respected each other's personal space. 

That's the great thing about being in nature when no one has tried to kill anything. You see what a beautiful balance is struck when Earth is left to her own devices. You realize that we needn't fear buzzing, flying, leggy things. Spending time outside is one of the greatest educations, in my opinion; one of the greatest ways to inspire a deep wonder and appreciation for our world. Get out there, get dirty, pay close attention, sweat, give thanks.

Lucky me, both red and black raspberries were there for the taking, and take I did. Just about four pounds but enough for 6 pints of jam or so. (I know because I made some at 9pm last night out of wild-eyed fear that my beautiful, delicate bounty would go bad). 

****

Once home, I quickly moved everything inside, ran to pick the boys up from camp, told them they could be as lazy as they wanted to until bedtime, let them eat as many blackberries as they wanted and got to work making jam and a pie and dinner for everyone.

grilled peaches with mint, olive oil, grilled bread and either homemade ricotta (left) or mozzarella (right)

After dinner and the raspberry jam, I said, "T, put a fork in me. I'm done!" and went to bed.

Thank you! Homesteading Em. Kids both cute and insufferable.

Dearest readers, Your wildly enthusiastic responses to A Case for Thorns were so rewarding and exciting. Thank you! I dare say I felt like a "real" blogger.

A note about comments. A few have said they fear they "comment too much." Others so kindly comment via my personal Facebook page and wonder why those don't import to the comment section on Em-i-lis.

1) Comments are a blogger's bread and butter. You can NEVER comment too much or often, unless you are an a-hole troll. Y'all are not. So, comment away! 2) If you do want your comment to show on Em-i-lis, you either need to comment directly on the post OR on the feed that scrolls through me Em-i-lis Facebook page. The latter imports directly to the post on which you're remarking. My personal page does not feed into my blog.

In any case, thank you.

Pull Up Your Covered Wagon; I've Got My Kettle A'boil! And some irritating kids for sale.

Today was a marathon of putting up, sandwiched around Tom's work picnic during which Oliver could NOT have been a bigger pill. T and I were trying so hard not to honk and snort on his colleagues (people, can we just be well!?) and Ol's total commitment to pilldom really did us in. I cannot tell you how many times he climbed up the water slide-moon bounce ladder only to then start crying and request that we go up and fetch him. We did not have on bathing suits.

There was a dunking booth which is a bit of entertainment that needs to go newly viral. Jack clamored in and said, "Hey Mom, you wanna dunk me?"

People, I did. I really did. He'd had several moments throughout the morning during which I thought putting a fork in my eye and jumping out of the window sounded preferable to spending more time with him. So, I dunked his business like it was my job. He laughed, I laughed, and we were best pals from then on. Oliver was still whining to beat sixty, and if he were a better swimmer, I'd have forced his tiny bum up onto that dunk ledge ASAP.

The verve with which folks (except one nice mother) dunked their children was a sight to behold. Hilarious. There was even a grandfather who went in on his grandchildren. I think this is very illuminating, y'all. Just sayin'.

But for the rest of the day, I dealt with my the fruits of my wildly enthusiastic labors of yore. Blackberry-buttermilk muffins for breakfast. Straight-up blackberry jam for Tom and Jack; blackberry-sage for moi. So many bags of berries vacuum-sealed and put in the chest freezer for later. This gorgeous blackberry-peach crisp with a sage-brown butter topping. I think there are just a few cups left.

And then the tomatoes. Seventeen pounds, which was roughly half that tub I was gifted last night, were eaten by the boys or pressure-canned into quarts for the months from now when fresh tomatoes seem like a figment of a bygone era. Definite progress!

J and I read another chapter of The Westing Game tonight. Sadly, we're almost done, but happily, he loves it as much as I did when I was his age. Tomorrow the raspberries need tending, the peaches will surely have started to ripen and there remain many a pound of tomato to go. I'm up for it, as long as my Kleenex box and giant cup of water aren't far away.