Out On The Blueberry Farm

I’m not sure I even like blueberries.

I can’t recall ever popping one into my mouth, actually.

I’m not even sure I have baked with real blueberries either.

You might find it ironic that this past weekend I insisted, yes insisted that my husband and I take a little road trip an hour and a half away to go blueberry picking.

But, if you know me at all you probably aren’t all that surprised.

I mean, what could be more fun than getting up super early on a Saturday morning for this?

We woke up early and headed to Covington, Louisiana to  Blue Harvest Farms.

Upon our arrival, the parking lot was packed. Cars everywhere.

Groups of people wearing rubber boots. Even larger groups wearing floppy hats. Matching floppy hats.

Thoughts of a berry outage danced in my head.

I mean, these people look like they’ve done this type of thing of before. They have their children’s wagons for crying out loud! And those hats!

But we checked in, received our buckets and were assigned a “picking row”. The staff explained the difference between the berries and we were on our way.

Oh, hello abundant berry bush.

I’m sure there’s a science to berry picking that I’m unfamilar with, but my process went a little something like this.

Pick em’.

Put em’ in your bucket.

Repeat.

I must say, there is something quite relaxing about being in the middle of a field of blueberries.

It’s just you, your berries, and your bucket.

Wait a darn minute. Your husband is out there too!

Occasionally, I would wander over to his area of the picking row to check on how full his bucket was getting.

And then that’s when our fun-filled-berry-picking outing went downhill.

On my leisurely stroll back to “my” area of berries, I decide to snatch up a few more berries.

And that’s when I learned a very valuable lesson.

You know who else finds blueberry fields relaxing and fitting for a morning snack? BEES!

That’s right. Bees.

Apparently two of them were having a little date and unbeknown-st to me, I not only disturbed them, but went in for their brunch.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………………..on me!

I’m not sure if I actually grabbed the bee and then his friend stung me for added annoyance, if maybe they both got me, or perhaps the one bee got me twice. Can they even sting twice? Or do they die once they’ve stung?

All I know, is it stung like crazy and I hung my head in shame as I sauntered back over to the husband to let him know, “we’re done here”.

And then I remembered this sign:

Hey! What about snacking bees?!?!?

By the time we returned home and I began packaging them up for Father’s Day gifts in super cute ceramic fruit baskets, I sort of forgot all about my numb and throbbing fingers.

PS: There’s a reason I made the basket liner yellow gingham. Blueberry lemonade, my lovelies, blueberry lemonade.

But you’ll have to wait for that post.

Got any blueberry recipes you’d like to share?