Feeling Blue

*image courtesy of MarthaStewart.com

Last Saturday we went to a U-pick farm in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE and picked blueberries. I was super excited about this, as they were offering them at $1 pound and they are usually $5.00 a pint in the store--more if you want organic. I love blueberries, so we trucked out there, lathered up in sunscreen, donned hats and tried to avoid ants as we picked. And it was a lot of fun, even in the Florida heat. We ended up picking sixteen pounds! We proudly loaded them up in the back of the car and headed home. We stopped at a really awesome store/farm in Myakka City, and bought fresh farm vegetables, the girls picked some more strawberries, and I bought homemade preserves and sunflower butter. We just felt so darn farmy! I could pretend for a moment if I stared out at the cow fields that we were country folk, fitting in with the rest of the good ol' country "yes ma'am-ers" (when did I become a ma'am?), living a more simple and honest life.

The fun kind of ended though when it came time to prepare those sixteen pounds of blueberries. Remember the story of the Little Red Hen? That was apropos here as when it came time to do the work the rest of my family scattered to the far ends of the house (I don't really know if that's the right way to use apropos, but I just reeeaaally wanted to use it somewhere).

For the last three days, I have been cleaning, sorting, de-stemming (THE WORST), drying, and freezing sixteen pounds of blueberries. On the second day my mind went numb and my back froze. By the third day I realized like Lady MacBeth, I was never going to get these damn spots (blueberry stains) out of my permanently dyed nailbeds and cuticles. I hide my hands whenever I go anywhere. I really felt for women before us, who canned jar after jar of vegetables and dried meats for the long winters ahead.

When I was tempted with the idea of just throwing the dang things down the trash I let images of pies, cobblers, crisps, parfaits, buckles, pancakes, muffins, etc., dance in my head. The work will be worth it. And hopefully will give me the ability to smirk at the high cost in the grocery store when I walk by.

I was finally done this evening, and then scrubbed purple out of the counters, dishes, and floor. And off Jack's face.

They will be good frozen for about a year. Which is good, because I think it might take me about a month to be able to even look at a blueberry again. Or get the stains off my fingers.