Black Raspberries

10:30pm sitting around the table eating dinner together! Kali said I should write a blog posting entitled "black raspberries" so here I am. What a fun evening the three of us had. After spending some time in the garden tying up tomatoes and peas, covering eggplant, harvesting basil for pesto, peas for eating, and oregano for drying, we headed out for a "family adventure."

The heat of the day was being replaced by a lovely low humidity breeze as we walked up the hill. We spent the next two hours picking black raspberries along the edge of the woods. Kali was our leader and happily scouted out the next "jackpot" spot for us, as she happily chattered about having black raspberry smoothies, frozen raspberries to munch while taking baths and to make black raspberry jam. She highlighted how great it was that they were local, in season, organic AND fair trade. We couldn't agree more!!

The daylight ended our search, after Kali and I took a quick spin to top off the fruit in our bellies with a few handfuls of blueberries. We then tucked 11 containers of berries in the freezer and made a batch of jam, which was tested and proven delicious for dinner just now.

Right now the land around us feels as it if it is just bursting with life and when I'm out on it, I feel full also. The Phoebe bird parents are busy feeding the mouths of birds that are about to outgrow the nest. I caught a black snake attempting to climb our porch post yesterday and Jason (once again my hero) knocked it off and thus far we have seen no reappearances. Hopefully they will have the chance to fledge in peace. How they go from sitting in the nest to flying is still amazing to me. As is the realization that on day 2 of incubation, the chicks inside the eggs in our incubator have beating hearts!!