Summer fruit goodness

The girls and I stopped on a whim last week and picked some raspberries at a local u-pick farm. I generally avoid raspberries, thinking they are one of my least favorite fruits, plus I have bad memories of having to harvest them from the backyard garden as a kid. I always managed to get lots of scratches, which made me dread the chore even more than my general laziness already did.

Things change over time, though, and I found myself enjoying picking raspberries this time around. Funny how the large, sharp thorns of my childhood are much smaller and less vicious now. We brought home four quarts, about 5 pounds.



Nothing would do but to go back for some more this week. The plants were loaded with lots of beautiful berries. The girls thought they were fun to pick, in spite of the thorns.

On our second trip, we picked 10 more quarts, weighing almost 13 pounds!

We stopped for raspberries the first time because we noticed the sign when we were coming home from picking up a bushel of peaches. 'Cause, you know, a bushel of peaches isn't enough to do, you've gotta get some raspberries, too.

So far, I've made Peach Melba freezer jam and canned peach-raspberry no-pectin jam. I've canned peach syrup and frozen some raspberries, but I still have more peaches and raspberries I need to process today. I am thankful for my girls, who always willingly help with all the produce we preserve.

It's a busy time but the work we do now will taste so good when the ground is covered in snow and all this fresh summer fruit is just a memory.