A Patch of Berries

Yesterday Richard and I went on a splendid date. We got up early and went hunting for blackberries. First we ventured to a beautiful park with a small river/large stream that was rumored to have wild berries growing alongside it. What we really like about this park is the covered bridge that ties two parts of the park together. It’s really neat. Unfortunately all the berries at the park were no longer producing, but our search wasn’t in vain as we did find a “few” ripe raspberries along one of the roads on the way out of the park.

We didn't expect to go hunting for berries too long, but I really wanted to get blackberries from the forest area just south of State College were we were first exposed to and ate wild berries. This is the area where we spent a few days with the youth on the Pioneer Trek last July. For the most part the area is lined with trees and you follow a gravel road up and down forested mountains. It's a lot different driving through the area rather than walking the area, but either way it's beautiful. We didn't have to drive far to find tons of raspberries along the road. The patch of berries we picked stretched 30+yards, making it a bit bigger than just a patch of berries. We really got into picking and kept climbing through and into the bushes to get more ‘ripe’ berries. I’m sure we were quite a sight to behold. As you can imagine, we didn’t exactly come out of the experience unscathed. Raspberry bushes are lined with THORNS (large and small). There are also a lot of other "things" that grow with them that have even bigger thorns too. By the end our arms looked like we were clawed by cats. The thorns seemed to like my hair too as the thorns kept catching and pulling it. But every scratch was all worth it!!! We have a lot of raspberries. After making a serious dent in the berry bushes we once again went looking for blackberries. Although we didn’t find any good patches of blackberries, someone at church informed us of a road by the airport that has blackberries growing on it. We checked out the road after church and it looks like we’re going to pick berries once again this week. I can’t wait to make some homemade wild raspberry and blackberry jam. YUM!

The morning was quite mystical with fog covering the entire valley. At 64 degrees, the temperature was just right for picking. By 11:00 a.m. the fog rose, and so did the temperature, making it a sunny day. I finished the day making a baby quilt for a friend and Richard went fishing for bass and catfish (he caught both). I guess you could say it was a great day in Central Pennsylvania.

Practically Pioneers...

Richard's garden is coming along quite nicely. He has worked so hard to get the garden in. With all the rain we had during the first three weeks of June (We didn't see the sun for three weeks) it took multiple weeks to finally get the garden in and get the wildlife and bugs off our plants. Richard worked tirelessly to build a fence that will keep the deer, rabbits and other critters out. In the process we were caught under a number of drenching rain clouds that decided to dump all the rain they had on us a few nights in a row. But alas, everything seems to be growing (I had to plant to peas twice to get them to grow though). It's going to be a late crop , but at least there's going to be a crop, and a good one at that.



On days it doesn't rain Richard drives the jeep up to the garden and waters it using water he puts in our cooler. So far, between mother nature and his trips in the jeep our plants are growing.

The Gardner

Richard has become quite the gardener. Thanks to our nice builder he has a large plot of land to work with for a garden this year. Best of all, Richard can use as much of the land as he wants.

Last year Richard planted tomatoes, peas, lettuce, and onions in our flower beds. By the time fall rolled around and he could harvest his vegetables two of our tomato plants were so large that we couldn't walk down our steps or see the holly bush that was planted in the middle of them. Apparently the experience was so traumatic for the bush that it hasn't decided whether it is going to live or die. Right now the bush has a few green leaves on it, but at the moment it looks quite pathetic. Anyway, I have never seen tomato plants grow so big. We had hundreds of tomatoes last year. This year Richard has decided to plant 10 tomato plants. If any one of the plants turns out like they did last year then we are going to be feeding all of Bellefonte. It is fun to see Richard excited about his new favorite hobby. With all of the produce that comes from our garden Richard plans to do some canning--I guess that means I am going to learn how to can fruit/vegetables too--and give away the produce from our garden to EVERYONE he knows in Pennsylvania. Thus far we have planted between 80-90 onions, some lettuce, carrots, peas, cabbage, broccoli, and ONE tomato plant. Our only fear is that the critters will eat our garden. After clearing the land and just prior to putting in our furrows, we found some deer tracks through the garden. You never know when the critters will show up in this neck of the woods.