Tag: blueberries

Slowly–an Update

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

It has been far too long since I have written! We have been busy around here with the usual summer work. It’s blueberry season right now here in Maine, and it has been a good one. Just ask the birds in our yard. They will confirm that our blueberry bushes were loaded with berries this year!

Some years, when we see the birds eating all of the berries, we will net the berries, but we haven’t had the heart to do it the last couple of years. It just seems like the birds have generally shared some with us, and we have to worry constantly about a bird getting caught in the net. Over the years, we had two birds caught in the net, even though we mark the nets with bright colors and weave bright yarns across the tops. Thankfully, both times, we helped the birds escape the net, but we always worry what would happen if we weren’t home or just didn’t notice a trapped bird.

This year, a family of Robins and a very large family of Mourning Dove have eaten almost every last berry. We got about a quart and a half. I estimate they have had about six quarts so far, so they are not sharing very well this year.

Thanks to the birds, I am making my favorite breakfast this summer using blueberries from another farm. I really, really love blueberries and oatmeal.

We eat a lot of blueberries throughout the winter, so Ron and I made a trip north to our favorite blueberry farm in the middle of nowhere and spent last Friday picking berries all day. I noticed we were slower than ever before, especially me. Our family is making progress with this long COVID stuff, but it has been hard to spend the summer so tired and so worn. Still, we are slowly getting things done.

We have put up strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, broccoli, cauliflower, and turnips so far. I have also made jams and jellies, and we have eaten something fresh from the garden every single night since the first of June–spinach, lettuce, radishes, berries, and kohlrabi so far. We have also raised and processed 26 meat chickens, and I have 8 dozen eggs in the freezer for winter. I need to get about 4 more dozen.

Of course, because we are so slow at everything (in particular I am slow at everything) I haven’t had time to write. I’m just barely getting by this summer, but I am thankful to be getting by.

We were so slow picking the blueberries on Friday that I marveled we were going to have to make two trips. I was just too tired to pick enough for the winter in one trip. Still, Ron and I were diligent and did our best. We are learning that, some days, that’s all you can do–your best. And we’ll go back for more blueberries this coming Friday.

I feel I should also update readers in other ways because it has been just so long. I’ll start with a Ruby update. She’s as sassy as ever, and she finally un-broodied herself. This is the first summer of her life that I haven’t let her raise a clutch of chicks. It took her nearly two months to accept the fact that there would be no babies this year, but she has accepted. Still, as I was celebrating Ruby finally breaking herself from being broody, Saint-Saens has decided to go broody, as has Petty. Petty is such a good mom. It’s hard to deny her, but we’ll try to plan for next year.

Mary Jane and Rooster are still hanging in there, but Hector has water belly. She is very young, so this means she does not have good genetics, and it’s heartbreaking. However, I did a small drain last week and will do another one this week. Hopefully, we can keep her going and comfortable for a few more months. She’s such a magnificent girl. What a crappy deal she got. I guess that’s how it goes. Sometimes, you just get a crappy deal.

With crappy deals in mind, I had to leave the farm last week and fly to see my brother in Oklahoma because he is so sick. I cannot say a lot here, but he’s way too young. He definitely got a crappy deal too.

Oh, and the night before I had to fly to Oklahoma, we lost our first duck ever. I was devastated. I will have to write more about it, but it was our mean girl. She lived a good long life though, and while I am sure it felt like a crappy deal in the end, she handled it with grace. I hope to handle my death with such grace. I swear, it was like she knew she was moving on.

I hope you are all doing well, and I hope to start writing more this week. I am so glad to be home from my travels and back with my family–the human and furry kind. I somehow managed to sprain my ankle, so it’s forcing me to move even more slowly–and also sit and write a bit.

It feels good to get back to it.

I’m an old bear.

~ Crystal Sands ~ 4 Comments

Right now is like a farmer-Crystal dream come true. All the berries we grow–strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries–are ripe at the same time! This never happens. I don’t even understand how it happened, but it has been a very strange year, as they all are these days, I suppose. Anyway, I am well aware that is probably not a good sign that things are this out of rhythm in the grand scheme of things but am in my own kind of heaven having all of these berries at once.

Of course, the strawberries are winding down, but they are still producing a lot of small berries. Today, when I got home from taking our son to music camp, Ron told me we had to pick blueberries. I was like, “You mean raspberries?” But he meant blueberries. They are gorgeous too. So gorgeous!

All of these berries are so gorgeous that I actually hurt myself today. I got greedy.

I have been having a few health struggles again in the last week. I am trying to figure it out, but having an autoimmune disease is all very confusing to me still. I pushed my body a little too far and really hurt my back picking strawberries. The berries are tiny, and there are hundreds. It’s tedious picking but so worth it because those little berries have had some sun here at the end of the season and are packed with flavor. I saw a beautiful berry patch in the far part of the extra-large raised bed and pulled a muscle in my neck.

I was so mad at myself. I know I can’t reach the far parts of the beds and have to get Ron or our son to reach them, but I got carried away because of the beautiful berries. I’m greedy for sure.

Later, Ron went outside to pick blueberries while I sat on the couch and watched television. This is something I never do, and it felt weird. I was also curious about these blueberries are that were supposedly ripe so early, so I ended up back outside with the plan to just watch Ron pick blueberries.

But then I saw them! Oh, readers, they were like dream blueberries. All of this rain has done them justice. We have eight bushes, and I have certainly never seen such an amazing year of blueberries. We may try to put up the nets. I am not sure though. I like to share a little with the birds. I guess it will depend upon how much the birds are willing to share with us.

Seeing those beautiful blueberries glisten in the raindrops made me forget myself again. I grabbed a quart basket from Ron and just kind of lunged at the berries. I winced in pain. I forgot how much my neck hurt. I whimpered.

“I’m like an old bear, grumbling around but needing to get to my berries” I said to Ron. “There’s nothing better to me than these berries.” I reminded Ron of my reoccurring dreams about bears, like that was evidence I was, indeed, really a bear.

“You are a bear,” he said. “And you grew up without your berries, but here you are now, in Maine with all of these berries.”

He was smiling at me so big but with worry behind the smile. My health struggles scare him. I have to get better. I am certain the berries are going to help.

505 Blueberries Per Quart

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

Day 84 of 365

After my second quart, I announce “There are 505 blueberries in this quart!”

“Is that all?” Ron hollers from across the field. I don’t know why that man is never impressed. I thought he might say, “Wow! That’s amazing!” He never says things like that. I don’t know why I imagine such things in my mind.

“Yeah, well, I got lucky with some bigger blueberries early on and filled up the bottom of the quart super fast!” I holler back.

I suppose counting blueberries is what one does on a hot day in August when your kiddo, who is usually with you to complain about the heat and the wasps, is at summer camp. Today, it was just me and Ron and the heat and the blueberries that were three sizes smaller than last year. I felt a little lonely. I felt a little bored, I suppose. So I counted blueberries.

We pick blueberries at a farm that lets things be all natural. It’s in the middle of nowhere. You have to watch for bears. And they don’t/can’t water their berries. The berries we picked today were so much work, so much smaller than in years past. Apparently, our county in Maine is not officially in drought, but we are not far away from one. Ron is starting to worry about the well. But, for today, we just focused on the blueberries.

We eat a lot of blueberries all winter–in oatmeal, muffins, and I am determined to try them with quinoa this year–so we stock up on local blueberries every summer. But today’s picking was tough. The berries were so small that it took at least twice as long to fill up a quart as it did last year. I take that back, I would say three times as long.

And some of the bushes just had no berries at all. I was a little panicked at first, worried we wouldn’t get our quota of berries, which are extra important since the birds ate all of ours, though truly, our bushes did not make a lot of berries this year either. But I found a few generous bushes. I was so thankful to them as I picked. Sometimes, I just said it out loud to myself as I plucked the berries. “Thank you for this one and this one and this one. Oh, and especially this big one.”

I also learned to follow the wasps to the good berries, though not too closely. I have been stung before. Miraculously, though I had a few close calls, I did not get sting today.

Somehow, we managed to pick ten quarts, which will go a long way toward our quota but will not quite make it for us. I have a friend who sells wild blueberries though, so I am going to write to her and see if she has any boxes of the wild ones left. My fingers are crossed.

Just as I was about to start my last quart, an older couple (of course, I realize as I write this that my husband and I are pretty much an “older couple”) pulled up next to the car as I was heading toward the car to leave a quart in the trunk and pick up one more empty carton. They were kind.

“Did you leave us any berries?” the man asked. I told him it was a tough year, but I told him the spots that were better. His wife was disappointed.

“It’s the lack of rain,” I said. “It’s been a tough year.”

“And I guess they can’t water way out here,” she said.

“Right, right,” I said.

“Last year, the berries were jumping into our cartons,” the man said.

“I know. It’s a lot more work this year, but they’re there.” We all reminisced about last year’s berries. Last year, we started the growing season short on water. It was looking like another drought, but then the rains came and came and came. We had so much rain late last year, after begging the rain gods for it for months, that we had carrots rot in the ground from all of the water. The blueberries loved it though. Oh, how I wish for that rain again.

Every single day, Ron checks the weather hoping for rain. Every single day, he complains it’s not coming.

Right as we had to go pick up our son from camp, I came upon two great bushes of berries. As we walked toward the car, I saw the woman.

“Right here, there are two great bushes with good berries, kind of middle of this row and then another right across from it,” I told her.

“Thank you! I’ll check it out,” she said.

Raspberries, Blueberries, Heat Waves, and Eastern Phoebes

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

Day 73 of 365

Have I mentioned that it’s hot? Oh my goodness, I am a heat wimp. So is my son. We have a row of raspberry bushes that have been reasonably generous this year. We’ve eaten and shared quite a few raspberries, and I was able to make two batches of raspberry jam from our own berries. Still, if I want raspberry jam to send to my family in Texas and Oklahoma this Christmas, I have to go pick at local farms.

These are lovely berries from our own bushes.

This morning, we made the drive north to a berry farm we visit every year for extra raspberries. You can buy the raspberries already picked, an option my son would prefer, but it’s so much cheaper to pick your own. So we do. But this year was tough.

It was so hot out there, even though we made it to the farm by late morning. I swear, even my sweat was sweating. We all wore hats, and I brought water; however, my son and I struggled. My farmer husband was stoic–as he is. I, however, am not very stoic, and my son, well, let’s just say he believes wholeheartedly in making his feelings known on any situation. He ended up sitting in the car turning on the air conditioner periodically. I didn’t blame him. It was really too hot for heat wimps like us to be out there.

To make matters worse, the berries were rough. These were drought berries. It was heartbreaking to see them. They were small and felt almost dry on the bushes. They will be just fine for jam, but the picking took extra long because of the smallness of the berries.

As I picked and thought about what tough work berry picking is, I thought about farm workers, many of whom are migrant workers, who do this hard work day in and day out–bent over, picking berries in the heat, moving so quickly, certainly at ten times the rate in which I was picking today. How thankful we should all be to them. It’s terrible that, for the most part, our society isn’t thankful to them at all.

Years ago, I developed the philosophy that anyone who eats meat should have to be a part of the process of processing an animal for food at least one time in their lives in order to learn the reality of it. At the very least, there would be far less waste. But, today, it occurred to me that it would likely be very beneficial for people to also get to experience picking fruit in the summer heat. Wouldn’t it be great if we were all more grateful to farm workers?

Well, I could go on, but I should probably get off of my soap box for tonight.

When we got home, we had more of our own berries to pick, and our wonderful neighbor said we could pick a couple of quarts from her berries too. This is an extra treat. Our berries are fairly large, but she waters hers more frequently, and those raspberries are so big you can wear them on your finger tips!

After that, I decided I should take a look at our blueberries, and I made a heartbreaking discovery–the birds have eaten almost every single blueberry we had! I just about cried. I don’t think we are going to get a single blueberry this year, and we have four fairly large bushes. .

So we are going to certainly have to head back to the farm to pick. Last year, we used a net, but birds kept getting stuck in the net. Thankfully, we were able to save all of them, but we were away from home more this year and were hesitant to put up the net. We didn’t want to accidentally cause the death of a bird because we didn’t want to share our berries. Still, next year, we have to figure out something. We are always willing to share with nature, but the birds have gone too far this year. Little blueberry thieves.

On the bright side, Ron took my mind off of the blueberry situation by showing me a little melon growing in the garden. It’s magnificent, and it looks like more will be coming soon. I guess one perk of heat waves in the Maine summers is that we can finally grow melons in the garden.

I wrapped up the day with a little wildlife photography that led to a panic of sorts. It started with the notion that I was going to take a picture of the baby Eastern Phoebes on our deck. I talked to a neighbor who has a set of Phoebes who come back to a nest by her garage every year. She said she can get right up there and look in the nest, and everything is always fine. Well, this made me bold. I was determined to get a picture of those baby birds tonight.

So I found the step ladder and took this picture of the babies. Only the babies were sleeping, I guess, because they just look like little lumps of fluff and fuzz. I showed my picture to Ron, and he said, “Well, you’re the best wildlife photographer in the world!” I told him I didn’t need his sarcasm.

Still, I like the picture because you can really see what the nest is made of, and just as I thought, you can see the Boudica fur. I have found many nests on the ground over the years, and they are all lined with Great Pyrenees fur. I mean, why would you not use fur so soft and luxurious? I also like that you can see the leaves and moss and tiny twigs. And, maybe, I will try again tomorrow to get a picture of the babies while they are awake.

We’ll see though because, after I took the picture, I started to panic that I had somehow scared off the parents. When I went out tonight to see if I could see one of the parents back at the nest, there was nothing but the sleeping balls of fluff. I started researching and researching online. It’s very difficult to find specific information on Eastern Phoebes on the web. This is so frustrating to me, but I did find out in my researching that, unless it’s cold, most mama birds do not sleep on the nest with their babies. This was a surprise to me because chickens sleep with their babies every night.

So I learned something new and am hopeful I didn’t scare off the parents. I am determined to convince Ron that we need to set up a web cam on the nest next year. I mean, that would be fantastic? Of course, I imagine I would never get any work done because I would just want to sit and watch the Eastern Phoebes.