Berries and Apples and Pies, Oh My!!

This year we picked berries!  And then we picked more berries and more berries, some apples and some plums too.
Our berry picking started with raspberries  at a farm out in Carnation on the hottest day of the year.  We went in the morning but it was HOT!


Josie was quite the picker and actually picked and collected more than she ate.  Marty on the other hand probably ate as much as he picked

Kids trying to stay in the shade while picking

They both thought the buckets around the neck thing was a great invention.

Stop taking pictures mom and get to picking!!

In the end we picked (and collected) 16 lbs.  Can you see how hot it is by looking at Josie!  Maybe the hottest day of the year was not the smartest choice to be working in the fields.We should have weighed Marty before we started picking. Something tells me that he ate several pounds of berries.  They were DELICIOUS right off the bush!!

We ate so many just fresh but I also made several raspberry/apple crisps and a bunch of raspberry jam.

The next berry up was blackberry.  I found a little spot just down the road from us that no one else had found.  I probably picked 8 pounds there.  One time the whole family came and while exploring the kids and Marty found a tree LOADED with apples.  It is in a no man's land area and not on anyone's property so we took advantage and picked a 5 gallon bucket full of wild, sweet apples. 

One of the several buckets that I filled with blackberries this summer. 

I made homemade applesauce and blackberry jam.

I also made blackberry/apple pie which was voted the best in the pie category.

The final berry we picked this summer was blueberry.  Apparently these were Benjamin's favorites.  They aren't normally but these were SO amazingly flavorful right off the bush.  It was also a warm day and Benjamin would pick a few and then just plop down and start eating and then he just stayed there and kept eating.  He must have eaten 2 lbs. while we were picking.

And to round off our summer fruit picking and baking, Oma and Opa gave us some of their freshly-grown rhubarb.  I just had to buy some strawberries to go with it to make a final strawberry/rhubarb pie. 

I will have a dessert menu for those coming to visit us over the year.  We literally have pies, crisps and applesauce loaded up in the freezer.