Shh! The Blueberries Are Sleeping.

Again with the produce! That's right and this time it's blueberries. We went to Butler's Orchard today with 2 other families to pick blueberries.

KosherCop got tired of it early on and hired his friend to do his picking for him. I heard him "delegating" and told him he wasn't to boss around this other little boy - that he wasn't working for him. However, his friend was adamant that he was in fact KosherCop's "worker" and so I gave up. Disturbing as this was, I couldn't help kvelling a little at my son's leadership skills and daydreamed about his possible future as an entrepreneur. That is, until he announced it was picnic time and the 2 of them sat down between the rows of blueberry bushes and proceeded to chow down 2/3 of the profits.

Despite this short-lived business arrangement, we all had a great time and went out to lunch afterwards. This meant that our collective haul had to spend 2 hours baking in our 120 degree cars while we ate - the first of many hardships our blueberries would have to endure.

Amazingly, the berries were fine when we got home. To be clear, only I was amazed - KosherCook said, "What are you worrying about? They are out in the hot sun all day every day."

Hmm...good point - did they sprout roots and continue growing while they were in our trunk too?

The rest of the day centered around decluttering counter tops and washing various colanders in order to finally be able to rinse and put away the blueberries in our tiny kitchen. The plan was to freeze most of them since we have a poor track record for using up fruit before it spoils.

After I washed them I set them out to dry and asked KosherCook to check how to store them in the refrigerator. Apparently, I should have had him do this first, because the answer was that I shouldn't have washed them at all - they have to be put away dry, especially if they are going in the freezer. This made sense, and that was why they were drying.

At 11:30 pm they were still quite wet. It takes a long time for 5 lbs. of blueberries to airdry. So I invented the "blueberry spinner" which consisted of a wad of paper towels on the bottom of a colander and me shaking small batches of berries until they appeared dry. If that didn't cause them to explode or get bruised in any way, I can only guess that they are purposely bred to withstand consumer stupidity.

The shaking worked better than I expected and now the blueberries are safely tucked in for the night. They are very delicious, but please don't disturb them - they've had a tough day!