Fresh Berries

With the price of groceries steadily rising in time to the appetites of this plague of locusts that live here, I try to find ways to coax some pennies from our budget. Gasoline ain't very cheap around here either and is needed to go to the store. I could ride my bike, but it is 7+ miles of hills which really doesn't appeal to me. I am imagining the steep hill right before my house with bike trailer full of groceries to feed my crew for two weeks. Can you even cram that much in a bike trailer?

One way I coax pennies from our budget is to grow my own food or find a place I can pick some for free. Luckily the place loaded with fresh berries is right on our own property. We have some woods on our property that houses a few blackberry vines and a couple of mulberry trees. We have some blackberry vines we transplanted in beds next to our house too. The biggest, juiciest and most flavorful blackberries are in the woods though, right in the middle of a huge patch of poison ivy.

That is why I take my kids with me. They think it is because of bonding experiences. You see, I am highly allergic to poison ivy. I can walk near some on a windy day and catch it. And when I catch it, I catch it. It goes beyond a patch of itchy skin. I am one of the lucky ones that it goes systematic on ... joy! So not to eat up our savings in doctor and prescription costs, I have the kids pick the berries while I yell encouragement like, "You missed one" or "That snake is harmless." We have a three foot black rat snake that lives in our woods.

See? It's harmless. Remind me not to share that bit of info of where it lives with hubby though as he freaks out even more than the kids when it comes to snakes. I was just trying to show him how cool it was and he went inside (rather quickly) and tried to lock the door on me.

Snakes are not the only obstacle though. I like to make granola and have the berries on top on that. Yum! There are so many berries this year that I can even have enough to make a cobbler. I picked just shy of a pound of berries last night alone. By getting the ladder I could even pick the higher up ones. I hate being short some days. I would have enough for cobbler except for this obstacle. He loves berries too.