Last week, I started feeling itchy. Berry season was passing me by. I had only one batch of blueberry jam in jars and not much else, either. Berries also seem to be very expensive this year for no reason I can figure out. I decided to take a couple of days off work and go berry picking. Today, we drove down to Terhune Orchards in Lawrenceville, intent on picking raspberries until our baskets broke. We were ready: sunglasses, straw hats, bad attitudes. But we discovered blueberries are almost finished, blackberries ripen now and raspberries come in the fall. Considering that last year we heard people who grow blackberries keep them for themselves, meaning we’d never get those and here we could pick as many as we could pay for and carry off, I had a hard time seeing this as a bad thing.

This is Cream, who lay on the porch last week. After I took this picture, I misplaced the camera for a couple of days. Meow meow crap meow!

I can barely lift my arms now, but we picked more than sixteen quarts of blackberries. What do I mean by that? We dumped the berries into my sixteen quart stock pot and the berries came level with the top. They’re resting peacefully in the downstairs fridge. Tomorrow, I’ll simmer them with good sugar and lemon juice. Tuesday, it’s blackberry goo into jars. I’m pretty psyched about our improbable good fortune, but for the moment, I’m overjoyed to have my feet up and an adult beverage.