Cherry picking on the farm

Sorry for my sudden mini-hiatus. I’ve been overwhelmed with good things and no time to keep track of them. I have two weeks of fun to share with you, and that’s always a nice development heading in to summer. We’re still getting used to the new climate, but I anticipate my posts a few weeks from now will consist of not much more than, “It’s hot. It’s so dang hot.”

Now that Atti’s getting older, we’ve been trying to have ourselves an adventure every weekend. We thought we were finally at a point where we could take him to a farm and he might actually care. Not so much.

We drove all over creation looking for a U-Pick farm, and only found one. The owner told us that nobody wants to pick anymore. She spends most of her time taking in field trips and girl scout troops. Several of the places we tried that were listed in our guide as U-Pick gave it up years ago and are just a farm stand now. It’s too bad, we’ve loved picking our own apples in the mountains outside San Diego, or blueberries up in New Hampshire.

The farm we found was still a really good place, though, and we set out to pick ourselves some cherries and strawberries. But as soon as Atti’s stroller hit the dirt road he started throwing a hissy fit. My child is a little vampire baby and while he likes going outside, he does not like the sun in his eyes. Or the existence of dirt or grass.

I remember when I was in second grade we lived in Texas. I spent the whole summer with a box of library books next to me. My siblings were so frustrated with my refusal to come out and play that they swiped my precious math workbook and burned it in the middle of the dirt road behind our house. To appease them, I’d walk outside with a book in hand, do a lap around the house, and then go back inside where it was cool. I’m afraid Atti might have developed my ‘indoor’ tendencies.

We shoved berries in our basket as fast as we could to make the trip worth our time and I left Bear to pay for everything while I got Atti back in the car and calmed down with a precious Elmo DVD (that he is only allowed to watch on very long car rides because I am a mean mom). While I was tending to Atti, Bear snuck off and found the blackberries and got me my very own pint. I ate them all in one sitting.

We stopped at a farm stand on the way home to get some apricots I had been craving, and couldn’t resist picking up some blueberries and peaches too. Summer has begun here, and the fruit is just divine.