We found a hidden treasure out in East Texas that will become our new Mecca. These blueberries are extra sweet because they're spring fed. Life just doesn't get much better.
Of course, this wouldn't be a Mallott adventure unless there was a story to tell. First of all, I don't know if this is just me and my little people or if this is a common thing to happen to all moms, but, if I happen to step 6 inches to the left, so do all my people. If I back-up to double check something, so do all my people. They are on me like a heat-seeking missile. Seriously, the whole time we're on a 500 acre farm, my children are no farther than 3 steps from me at all times. I kept trying to shake them but to no avail. If I tried to loose them in the bushes, they would find me in less than 5 seconds.
So, that's how it turned out the whole morning, Chuck, Mr. Meticulous Detail Man combing each bush and picking every last ripe blueberry off each one and me and my brood of puppy dogs, obediently following my every step, way far down the row from Daddy. My method of hunting blueberries is, grab the ones I see that look good and move on to the next bush leaving some for the person who's unlucky enough to find this bush after me. I don't like leaving people out. Plus, I was secretly trying to put some space between me and the kiddos. Didn't work.
Gavin's method is to complain loud and long about the heat and massive amounts of exertion this activity is causing him. He ate one out of every two berries he picked. He tried drinking the water out of the irrigation line feeding the blueberry bushes. There was also your random, over-the-top scream every time he stuck his hand into a bush that had a spider web in there.Bennett thought this to be a great forum for trying out all his latest jokes on us. He stayed on me like glue. I had to actually tell him not to lean on me. He picked anything at eye level whether or not it was ripe.Chloe chose this special time to forage blueberries off the ground and other low places. As long as she was close to me or in control of the video camera, she was thrilled.
These are the most accurate pictures of their interest level in the art of blueberry picking.
And last but not least...we realized we'd been hood-winked. A lady there told us not to go down any rows that had a blue marking on them. We were only allowed to pick from white or gray rows. Well...we found out why. We stumbled, accidently of course, onto this most wonderful bush. It was overflowing with massive, ripe, gorgeous, plump blueberries. We had just found THE BUSH of all bushes. We picked till our heart's content. I think most of our berries were from this one bush. On our way back to the car, we looked back down the row we came from and lo and behold, it was a blue one!! We were picking on a forbidden row on a forbidden bush. I'm glad we got out of there before the blueberry police were on to us!
