Berry-Picking with Alexa & Bee

We hosted Alexa and Brian in town last weekend, eager to get outside in the warm (hot) weather and hit a u-pick berry farm! We decided to try a nearby place that I'd never been to before, a farm and field that are not only u-pick, but self-serve. Yes, you enter through a gate that gets locked at night, pick all you want, and on your way out stop at a dusty, unmanned kiosk that has an old-fashioned scale and a money box. Totally on the honor system to pay for what you take--how wonderful is it that a concept like this is still in practice? The blueberry bushes were picturesque; widely-spaced rows of bushes covered with fat berries the size of grapes. We came prepared with a few empty pint boxes, a cardboard flat, and a bucket...and had to ask Andy to grab some of the reusable grocery sacks from the car, because we were filling our berry receptacles to overflowing! There were raspberry bushes on site, too, and after we'd picked (what we later found out to be) more than 10 pounds of berries, we kept murmuring things like, "Oh, we should move on to raspberries...", "I guess we've picked enough by now...", and "Yeah, let's get going...." But we were far too busy stuffing our mouths with juicy, sun-kissed blueberries to pull up stakes and move a few rows over. By the time we hit the raspberries, we were glad that we'd picked and eaten our berry fill, because the raspberry bushes nearest to us were unpruned, wild bushes with little prickles and overripe, shrunken berries. Meh.
We paid (properly) for our haul, rinsed our berries at home and divided them into bags for freezing and eating. Alton was overjoyed, because he loves blueberries, and hasn't gotten enough of them for the past few days. Several times he is snacking so voraciously that he winds up with bits of blueberry skin covering one of his front teeth, giving him a charming Hayseed appearance.
When we arrive at the berry farm, Alton is still carrying his snack cup full of crackers.

He holds on tightly to Brian ("B" or Bee), one of the coolest dudes ever in Alton's eyes.

The barns on the property (and the fields that I'm surprised didn't have me wishing that I'd shot the Claritin up intravenously that morning).

Alton discards his snack cup and settles in with his very own pint basket.

He proceeds as follows: sidle up to one of the adults and request some berries for his little basket, then eat them all. Repeat until entire body turns blue from the inside out.

You can already see berry stains around his lips.

This time it's Alexa who gets to fill Alton's pint basket.

Thanks for the hard-earned berries, Lex!

The munching never stops.

The berries were so ripe that I could hold my berry flat underneath a branch and gently tap the berries to make them fall into it.

The Scarfer returns.

He gets Bee to fill his bucket. Mmm.

After awhile, Alton, Brian and Andy take some time away from the berry bushes to check out the goat pen on the property.

The aforementioned self-serve "checkout."


Berry Boy saunters back to the bushes for more.

He now knows that Brian is his food source.

Bushes loaded with fruit!

Alton traipses with us one more time, checking out the raspberries before he gets swallowed by rogue branches.

Look closely; he's waving goodbye!