June album: Strawberry fields forever

The last weekend in June, we headed out to Sauvie Island for our annual strawberry picking.  The berries are late this year, which means the weather was warm.  I am happy to report that it is the first time since moving to Oregon that I did not have to wear my fleece or down vest while picking strawberries.

 

I love love love berry-picking - one of the best activities for a Saturday morning, I believe.  Berry-picking always conjures up the last lines from one of my favorite children's books - "Jamberry" by Bruce Degan.

"Mountains and fountains
Rain down on me
Buried in berries
What a jam jamboree!"

My berry-pickers enjoyed time out in the sun, wandering through the strawberry fields picking and eating as much as they could get their little hands on.  The result - an overzealous 3 flats of berries, or 28 pounds to be exact!  I love picking berries a bit too much.  Our weekend was cut out for us.  We jammed some, froze some, ate some - made strawberry lemonade, strawberries and cream, strawberries and yogurt...

Yum, yum - the berries this year were worth the wait.

October Album I: Harvest and Matthew’s birthday

We spent a beautiful October day at a pear and apple orchard in Hood River.  Highlights included pressing apples, eating fruit straight off the tree, riding in a cart (see Fiona with the cartful of boys!), and pretending to drive a tractor.  Our harvest  this year (from visits to the farm, our CSA, and even our garden) yielded lots of yummy jars of dilly green beans, sweet pickled beets, Kosher dill pickles, pear butter, apple butter, applesauce, pie apples, three-berry jam, rhubarb ginger marmalade, strawberry rhubarb jam, and strawberry raspberry jam!  This is the most we’ve ever preserved!  We were excited to take it all out of the pantry and look at it together. 

We also celebrated Matthew’s 34th birthday this year with my first-ever cheesecake.  I made caramel and chocolate sauce to drizzle on top – it was a hit!

blueberry picking

While my sister and her kiddos were in town, we took the whole crew out to Sauvie Island for some blueberry picking.  Fields and fields of berries awaited us!  It was easy to get lost in berry picking.  Some of us did more eating than picking, though, and so after gathering blueberries, raspberries, and marionberries; visiting the animal barn; and stopping in the store to purchase some green beans for pickling, we headed home.

We spent the afternoon and evening making an all-berry jam (called "jam jamboree", after a favorite book of ours), and some dilly green beans.  mmmmm...