Berry Paradise

Yesterday Abe and Seb and I went to pick berries at a berry farm (a Briar Patch, they call it) in Mapleton.  (My mother-in-law kindly watched Daisy and Ky for me so we wouldn't have to worry about Ky biting the berries right off the branch---which he does every time we pick berries at my Mom's garden---yum!).  The three of us are pretty good berry pickers (years of practice) but we've had to confine ourselves to the small berry patches in my mom and her neighbors' yards---without a chance to really test the scope of our skills.  So we were excited to be able to pick to our little hearts' content.

Well.  It was amazing.  I always love picking raspberries, but these were unbelieveable---huge and ripe and juicy, and so MANY of them!  There was row after row, and they were neatly tied up so you could walk through them easily instead of fighting your way through the brambles.  And the blackberries!  First of all, they were thornless, which I didn't even know there WAS such a thing, and second of all they were HUGE.

I felt, honestly, like we were in the Garden of Eden or something.  I couldn't stop picking:  "Just one more---look at that big juicy one; I can't leave that behind" and I could have happily stayed several more hours.  The lady who owned the place was super nice, too---she let the boys each pick and eat an apple from her tree, and she didn't get mad when Seb pulled up some carrots without permission, and she had a nice gentle dog who followed us around and lay down next to us while we picked.

When we got them home, we had about 18 c. of raspberries and 20 c. of blackberries---which have already been dealt with: 12 bags frozen for smoothies, and the rest allocated for:

pie

ice cream (recipe coming soon)

more of these muffins

eating on top of oatmeal

And I plan to go back and pick some more in a week or two.  I wish we could pick them all year round!!

If you are interested, I found the berry patch information here.  There's a place in Payson, also, which I might try sometime.

And this is the address:

McBride Briar Patch

1849 S. 2100 W.

Mapleton, UT 84664