blueberry morning

I was sifting through some old photos of Ana and found this one when we had taken her berry picking last year (2006). She had fun, even though it was a hot day.

We've been going to the farms in Sauvie Island pretty much every year for the last several years to pick berries in summer and get some produce as well. We go to Hood River fruit loop as well sometimes, but Sauvie Island is closer to where we live and offers hiking, birdwatching and other activities...

Anyway, last year, Ana was just one plus and too young to help us pick enough for our stash.

But, this year, since she has gone to the farms on and off, and loves to pet the animals there - and watch the bunnies, chicks, llamas, cows, ponies and such - when we told her we were going to the farm to pick blueberries one fine morning last month, she got very excited.

She insisted on picking out her outfit for the trip, and dressing herself! Don't need your help, thank you Amma!

Thankfully, most of her pants and skirts are elastic waist and she is quite adept at dressing herself right down to socks and shoes - thanks to the velcro™ straps on her shoes.

[What's a little more disturbing is, she can actually put on her diaper herself - even if not perfectly! Why disturbing, you ask? Well, it has to wait for the (series of) post(s) on potty training enterprise...]

The head band is her new thing - any hair accessory basically has caught her fancy - she loves hair clips a lot and rubber bands...

Anyway, this year, it was more productive as she really helped. Once we showed her she must pick only the blue/purple ones and not the green ones, she caught on. We usually take our own flat, with pint cartons. So we gave her her own pint carton and asked her to collect the blueberries in them, and when it was full, she can go leave it in the flat box.



Of course, it took her forever to fill one pint carton as for every three berries that went into the carton, one ended up in her mouth!

We managed to get quite a few blueberries and freeze about 2 or 3 gallon bags full. And I managed to make a few fresh blueberry goodies, plus canned another batch of blueberry jam this year.

This blueberry coffee cake is very simply and quite light. Here's my recipe for blueberry coffee cake, and other simple stuff!