Florida blueberry picking

Last year my husband discovered blueberry picking. He read about a place opening north of our area and one morning he just got up and disappeared, returning later with several pounds of blueberries. It's an hour drive to the farm and afterwards he found a little place to grab a coffee and some breakfast. I was invited to other trips that he made, but the timing never worked for me. My kid was still at home then and he always asked me late the night before. Plus, I had already been blueberry picking in Indiana. I chose sleeping in.

Thursday he announced that the season for blueberries started on Saturday. He must be alerted via email or something. Since he asked me early and I'm kidless these days I agreed to roll out of bed early and accompany him. It turned out to be a nice day even though we got a later start due to his sleeping longer than normal.

The farm is off the main road and the blueberry operation is well run. We parked and walked to the barn area where worker bees had us wash our hands with soap and water, gave us buckets, and sent us out to the bushes. It was early days. In a couple more weeks of warmer weather these bushes will be full. We still picked more than enough.

I asked the check-out girl to weigh each of our bags because I wanted to see who picked more. Tom snickered. He hadn't known it was a competition. Please, Tom. Don't you know me?

Girl: "He picked 2.8 pounds"
Girl: "And you picked...tee hee..2.8 pounds. It's a tie."
Tom: "Had I known this was a competition I would have eaten more from your bucket."

We got our coffee and breakfast sandwiches from his cafe. We stopped by Grandma's house to give her some of the blueberries. We finished the day with a trip to the library and later dinner at our favorite Greek restaraunt.

This no kid thing is routine now for us. Trying new things. Traveling. Summer will be here in another month. One kid will return. The other won't (something that had me down all week along with my virus). Either way, we did it. Conquered it. With blueberries on top.