The first time and only time I went berry picking, I was eleven years old. My Grandma June took me. We spent hours harvesting fresh berries from Jacob's U-Pick Strawberry Farm in central Illinois. Then we went to her house and made strawberry pie. It is one of my fondest childhood memories with my grandmother - only eclipsed by the time she took us to Steak-n-Shake and bought us both double hamburger meals.
Craig hadn't done much berry picking in his life either. Strange as we both love fresh fruit. Australia grows some of the best tasting fruit you'll ever eat, but it isn't cheap. Raspberries are golden in Australia - not in color, but in price. It's not uncommon to see them around $55/kg in our large supermarket market chains, and I've seen them as high as $72/kg. At the current exchange rate, that's about $26 US dollars per pound. For someone who loves raspberries, the prices are devastating.
During our drive across Victoria last year, I noticed a few U-pick fruit farms. I mentally filed them away, thinking they would make a fun day trip. Of course, berry season landed just as I got sick. Two weeks ago, I could barely get off the couch let alone frolic in a field harvesting fresh fruit.
My energy has been slowly building though and on New Year's Day, I looked at Craig and declared we needed to get out. We stumbled into the truck and he drove us an hour out of the city to Kinglake Raspberries.
Neither of us has picked raspberries before, and we weren't sure what to expect. We knew the brambles would be sharp, but I reasoned that my numb fingers would be perfect for the task. As we were late in the season, the owner warned us that the pickings were a bit thin. Still we managed to find about a kilo of plump raspberries to bring home at a fraction of the retail cost.
Actually I should say that Craig found a kilo of raspberries. As it turns out, I'm really crap at foraging. I wandered aimlessly with my head in the clouds as he loaded up his punnet. 'Oh look! a butterfly!'
If I were in charge of gathering our food, we'd starve. He out picked me at a ratio of 4:1.
Since we were already up that way, we asked the owner if any of his mates had other berry farms. He sent us to Summer Berries in Glenburn. By his account, 'the blueberries there are dripping off the vines.' He wasn't wrong.
Blueberries were another fruit that neither Craig or I had harvested. As it turns out, collecting them is heaps easier than collecting raspberries. Again Craig proved to be the master forager in our pack scoring us about a kilo and a half in a matter of minutes. I announced that I was saving my prowess for the kitchen.
We brought home all our berries and cleaned them up, putting a heap into blueberry jam straight away. Our first ever jam, I might add.
The next morning I thought I'd surprise Craig with breakfast in bed. Craig is gluten free, so I tried a gluten-friendly banana and egg recipe which we've used before and added berries to it. Something went wrong. Very wrong. Rather than being elated about breakfast in bed, he was peeved that I woke him up and served him sloppy goo. We aren't always winners in this house.
For those long-time readers who are curious, I'm still wearing the same tit-stabbing apron. The pins are now gone, but clearly the apron is to blame.
My plan to make muffins also fell apart when I realized that we don't own any muffin trays. We had several before we moved, but I think they were all given away. So I turned to donuts. You can never go wrong with donuts.
The champion berry picker approved. He ate almost all of them in a single sitting.
How about you? Do you have memories of picking berries as a kid? Or maybe you go now as a family? And what would you make with a couple of kilo of fresh fruit?
Have they arrived at a diagnosis yet? I still think about you daily.
ReplyDeleteThe berries look great. Raspberries are cheap near our home, probably because we live in the south and they are not really native. blueberries grow like weeds though and my hubby has a garden with blueberries, blackberries and scuppernongs. He would have strawberries, but I am highly allergic and they would probably cause a reaction.
I am getting better every day, so we're happy with that. At the last appointment with the neurologist, we were told that we may never know for sure what caused the problem. The MRI didn't show any obvious problems in the areas that were affected. There's no tumors, no signs of stroke, collapsed or swollen arteries. There also aren't MS lesions according to him either. It wasn't a normal MRI though and there is an excess of white spots around it for someone my age (40). So we'll do a follow up MRI to see if those are growing or shrinking.
DeleteAs for what happened two and a half weeks ago. We don't know. It may have been viral. It may have been something blocked. It could have been anything. I've been told that as long as I keep showing improvement every day, that we'll go the course without medication. The most troubling thing at the moment is my hands which have persistent pin and needles. It means I can't work a rotary cutter ad ruler, but it doesn't keep me from typing. Although I do a lot of that without those fingers at the moment.
Not knowing what happened is a bit scary. I get nervous each time I have to sneeze worrying it will happen again. But it may not... so in the meantime I just go on living and picking berries when I can.
this is tough. I'm so glad for consistent improvement, but not knowing has got to be frustrating.
DeleteWe have a good garden - and many berries! It's lots of work but I must have picked a couple of hundred dollars of berries by your prices, mainly raspberries. Our blueberries are a while away yet (in Canterbury, NZ). Berries freeze very well - I try to spread them out on a tray, then when frozen transfer them to a bag. Then you can use them in heaps of things. I like being able to send my daughter out there whenever when she is hungry, but it is a short-term luxury. Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteHi Amy, I'm glad that you're better and hope that whatever you had it'll never come back. About berries: we have raspberries in the garden, they're native here in Germany, and each year I'm harvesting a few kilos, best fruits ever! A kilo is about 15€ in the summer and about 20€/klio in the winter.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you could try therapeutic gloves--like the kind used for carpal tunnel. I found they helped with finger tingling. It sounds like whatever you have/had was a one-off. Very frightening, but now has turned the corner and is moving in the right direction.
ReplyDeleteSuch a lovely day out! So glad to hear that you and Craig got out into nature ~ best place to be!
ReplyDeleteMy Dad came from a family of farmers from Kansas. We were visiting and all the kids were given a small bucket and told to go look for Elderberries for pies, in the wild! They were everywhere. We picked and we ate lots too! Four pies were made with those Elderberries ~ oh so yummy! One of my best memories as a child ~ never did get those stains out of my clothes either!
So glad to hear that you are having daily improvement. Let's hope that things continue in that direction.
ReplyDeleteMine is a story of almost going berry picking. At the start on December 2013 we were staying in Bright in the Victorian Alps, I can't recommend the area enough, it's really beautiful if you're looking for a short trip out of Melbourne. There are lots of berry farms around and I had planned to go pick berries one afternoon, but my boyfriend had other ideas. We were down while he competed in a 3 day cycling tour, and that particular morning he got caught up in a crash due to someone else's poor judgement and broke his collarbone. So instead of picking berries I spent the afternoon driving to our accommodation to get his things, and then out to Albury hospital to pick him up. Oh well, we love the place so we'll be back and I'll get to pick my berries next time.
ReplyDeleteHope your health continues to improve, thank you for sharing your videos, I'm thinking good thoughts for you.