Growing up Mom would pack us into the car with buckets, containers, coolers, water, and snacks. She knew how to prepare for picking blueberries having started when she was young, working on a local farm in Holland, MI.
We arrived in sweaters walking through a light frost. We would leave sweating, our bellies and containers full of blueberries.
This past summer was the first time in years that Nina and I would join Mom again for a blueberry picking adventure. This time we had our own children with us and like in years past we packed up the cars and headed for the fields. Our thoughts went to Anna who miles away was heading for fields too with her little one in tow. She would not be harvesting blueberries but working on other crops.
The summer of 2012 we had a week of very warm weather followed by a heavy frost that killed the chance of a blueberry crop. Blueberries were expensive and scarce. Drought followed and needless to say fruit prices were astounding.
This past summer started out slowly and we feared a cold summer was ahead but we need not have worried. The heat came and so did the rain. The blueberry bushes burst forth with tiny white buds and soon luscious berries weighed down branches.
So it was that we arrived with the sun already hot on our backs as we started to fill our buckets. The children ate as much as they picked enjoying every moment. Mom worked quickly, filling containers faster than Nina and I all the while answering questions from her grandchildren and encouraging them to help with the harvest. We all brought home pounds upon pounds of blueberries, some we ate fresh and some we froze for winter enjoyment. While visiting Eric found the container of blueberries under the cotton cloth on the table set out for eating just as it had been growing up.
Today I used some of the frozen blueberries in a smoothie, truly enjoying the fruits of our labor.
