Donuts and berries

I think it makes sense to back track to the beginning of the summer and just go through our adventures chronologically. So, let me first take you back to the middle of June. School is out for the summer, Jason is still working on his dissertation in all of his free time, so we are busy finding different adventures to occupy our time. Now, as you may have noticed, we LOVE picking berries. (Well, I love picking berries. The kids tolerate it but they do love EATING berries.) Despite the plethora of berries I have plucked from the plant, I have not yet had the opportunity to harvest Jason's favorite berry - the raspberry. I search periodically, in the hopes of finding a U-pick raspberry place and this summer I stumbled across a farm that seemed to have blueberries, blackberries AND raspberries for the picking. It was an hour away, so it meant that we need to plan an adventure.

So one Saturday morning, we plotted to both try a new donut place (if I could find U-pick donuts, I would) and to try to pick the elusive raspberry. Grandma and Popop were enlisted for assistance, and even Jason was able to come along on the donut part of the expedition.

Donuts were delicious. We made the most of the excursion (all the way to Cary!) and got 2 dozen of all different kinds. Yum! Nothing super fancy, like some of our local shops, but definitely quite delicious. Special awards for the apple fritter, the cruellers and the cream filled ones.

After chowing down on sugar, then it was time to hunt the berries. We found the farm without too much problem but alas, we had arrived too late. There were no raspberries to be picked. (The owners told us that there were 10 cars waiting when they opened at 7 am. ALL of those early birds came to pick raspberries so the bushes were picked out. ) In grand total, I think we found 8 raspberries amongst our group. But the blackberries were GINORMOUS (big as my thumb, no lie!) and very sweet. Very easy pickings on the blackberries. Blueberries were just coming ripe, so we picked some of those as well.

can you see how big and juicy the blackberry is?!

happy with her harvest, pre-fall

M tended to skip the bucket and go straight to the mouth

Eliza did have a spectacular wipeout at the end which gave her a bloody nose (like gushing, it was awesome in a I-only-have-berries-in-my-hands-how-do-I-stop-the-blood-and-get-her-to-stop-screaming sort of way.) Thank goodness for Popop and his handy handkerchief! She did rally enough to help feed the goats some greenery.

our harvest! Yum!

We have not returned to either donut shop nor berry farm. I guess we'll wait till next summer to see if we can time the raspberry picking better. Now we know it's better to go for berries first, THEN donuts. Or maybe just make separate trips; I think donuts can be a cold-weather harvest after all!