A Berry Fun Day

This morning the children and I headed north on our very first berry-picking expedition to the little town of Sadler. We visited Bailey’s Berry Patch, a wonderful place that grows blueberries, blackberries, and muscadine grapes (grapes aren’t in season yet!). I didn’t know exactly how this little adventure would play out, given that two of my children don’t even care for blueberries!!

But, I needn’t have worried. The thrill of picking berries seems to have overshadowed their particular tastes, and all three worked very hard for two hours in the HOT HOT Texas sun, filling their little buckets with blueberries. We had a really fun time picking alongside our buddies and then took a break for lunch and a bit of a rest. After lunch, we determined we would attempt to finish filling our bucket (which, we’d learned, held 5 quarts of the tiny berries when filled to the brim). Jonathan was tired of picking berries by this time, but both Abigail and Nicolas attacked the bushes with renewed interest.

I’ve decided my two year old has an incredible work ethic for someone of his age. He was quite tenacious about his berry-picking, and I think viewed his contributions to the large family bucket I was holding as most important – which of course, they were! Some of the comments from him throughout the day were especially cute (esp to his Mommy!):

“Mom, I pick some berries for you. You like these?”

“Here are some more berries…see? I put them in your bucket.”

“You forgot to say thank you.”

“I’m not done yet, I’ll be done on Tuesday.”

We did indeed manage to fill our bucket, much to our delight, but Nicolas was undeterred from his mission to keep filling his tiny tin pail, and as we tried to get him to quit he exclaimed in frustration, “I not finished yet! My bucket is not full!”

After we managed to tear him away from the berry bushes, we all got to watch as the people who own the patch processed our little crop of berries for taking home. We also purchased some locally-grown tomatoes and cucumbers to enjoy.

This was a lovely way to spend the day, and after naps on the trip home, a big bathtub full of water, and lots of soap, my children were feeling quite themselves again. Here is a picture of them showing off the fruits of their labors: almost all five quarts (we snacked on them a bit!).
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4 Replies to “A Berry Fun Day”

  1. Just think, with Great Grandpa Renich in town, 4 generations of Renich-Hornes have enjoyed the fruit of their labor. (Did I make a pun?)

  2. Ah, cute picture!

    Have ya’ll read Blueberries for Sal? That is one of my favorite books. I hope there weren’t any bears loitering about. 🙂

  3. Mom, glad you guys are all enjoying the berries (there are more folks at your house right now who like the little blue things)!

    Greg, sweet comment. We definitely agree.

    Leslie, yes, we’ve enjoyed this book from the library several times, and also have own it on a scholastic video where the illustrations are shown to the narration of the original text. My Uncle Russ in NJ has bears that live in his neighborhood(well, to clarify: in the woods in behind their home) and it always makes me a little nervous to think about it!

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