Saturday, July 16, 2011

Fresh Berry Coma

Jill's Journal: It’s official. We’re moving to Oregon for the fresh food. Not really, but it certainly is tempting. Today we visited Sauvie Island Farms, a 285-acre “you-pick bonanza.”

Sauvie Island (originally named Wappatoe Island by Lewis and Clark) is the largest river island in the U.S. with a land area slightly bigger than Manhattan. The fertile soil makes it the perfect farmland. Several farms on the island invite the public to pick their own produce. The one we visited had just about every fruit, vegetable, and flower you can imagine. A long list of berry varieties are in season at the moment.

The girls were eager and industrious little workers. They loved picking the berries and have already asked if we can go back and do it again. They’re little farmers at heart.

We took home almost 10 pounds of berries for around $15 (with one pint of blueberries at a regular cost of close to $5 in the grocery store and equaling about 3/4 of a pound, $15 would normally only net about 2 1/4 pounds of berries). And I’ve certainly never had fruit from the market that was half this good. These suckers are so ripe and rich they melt in your mouth. We’re already in a food coma from all the wonderfulness. We’ll be eating berries until they come out of our ears for the next little while. Just divine. As we were heading to the car, we were certain life couldn’t get any better.

And then we found the cherry trees! What awesomeness.

Lavender, daisies, vegetables galore…we’re ready to just move right in.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh my gosh how good that looks! Jill, I bet they even have vegetables there that taste good too!
Love ya, kris

Jill said...

LOL Kris, they probably do! Love ya (I think, after that comment -- ha ha!!).

gretchenhs said...

Jill, did you pack all the little fruit tools I bought you years ago so you would eat more fruit? LOL
This looks like a different piece of heaven to me!!!

YUM!!

suefinley said...

Jill,
Organic, or no?

Jill said...

Gretchen! If I could eat fruit this good every day, I would *almost* be able to give up chocolate. :)

Jill said...

Sue, unfortunately not organic. And maybe that's good, because if it was, it would be entirely too perfect and we'd never, ever want to leave Oregon. :)

Unknown said...

Jill, why give up chocolate? What would you dip all those fresh berries in?

Jill said...

Good point, Gary. Quite right. This is why I like you so much.

Karen Tallon said...

We picked blueberries this year too. Irony: The last 3 years I've been like a slave driver to my quickly exhausted pickers (who said 3 and 5 yr olds make good farm workers?) to pick more berries before we go as I always want to get a lot to freeze in hopes of enjoying them all year. This year we went just days before we moved and the girls were inexhaustible and wanted to pick more and more all day...but this time I only needed a few. Anyway, I'm glad y'all enjoyed all the berries...I'd love to pick cherries too someday :)

Jill said...

Too funny, Karen! Hilarious, actually. My Grandpa and Dad always say something to the effect of, "Kids (and horses) make a liar out of you." Meaning, they never, ever do what you expect, especially when you really need them to! Isn't that the truth?? :)