Saturday was the first day the blackberry fields opened, and we were out first thing in the morning, since the temps were to climb in the upper 90's with a heat index in the 100's! It only took us about 30 minutes to pick a bunch, and a few for the mouth while we picked! The rest of the hot day was spent inside in the A/C making berry-related goodies. I might add that it was only $10 for all those mouth watering berries the kids are holding...
Here's Finnegan "helping" to make the jam.
Thanks to the kids playing with my camera, you get to see a picture of the happy homemaker with the finished jam! (Like the dumb headband?? Gotta keep the hair out the jam...)
Still, lots of berries left...so I made some blackberry lemonade. Kids thought this was awesome...probably because it wasn't watered down like I normally do to their store bought juice!
We also picked up some blueberries at a roadside stand on the way home, so I made blueberry muffins. This was the first time I had made them from scratch, and they were incredible. If you look up "To Die For Blueberry Muffins" on the web...that's the recipe I used, they even had a yummy crumb topping.
Finally, kids were off to bed and I thought that was a good occasion for a mommy drink - that's Blackberry Lemonade with a splash of vodka - YUM!
That brings us to today, which was pretty uneventful considering it's my birthday and Father's Day! We are minus the father, the kids are too young to really do anything for me for my birthday, and we don't live near family members, so I mowed the lawn and weeded the garden for my special day. Don't feel bad for me - I actually got ALL THE WEEDING DONE (for now) and my yard looks spectacular all freshly mowed and dog poop scooped...woohoo! The kids and I barbequed and ate dinner outside this evening and it felt so good to look at the backyard and garden and not be filled with the thoughts of drudgery! So it ended up being a great birthday after all! Tomorrow I still have plans for the garden, but for once all they are is to plant some of my flowers and sow some seeds, pleasurable stuff!! I will probably take some pics of my new container trees and what's blooming and update on that stuff for a change!
