Blueberries!

iSleepy. But I’ll try and post and remain coherent. But when I’m sleepy I can fall asleep and start having mini dreams instantly. I was actually just drooling on my arm like twelve seconds ago. And now I almost just dropped my phone on my face – gotta hate when that happens. 

Buuuuut, today has been a grand day of blueberry picking! We took a couple friends a lot too, which more people can always make adventure merrier. Buuut we didn’t have enough berry pickers ! So I stopped at handy dandy Ulmers on my way out to pick up one up. I got a yummy, fair trade, chocolate bar there too. Thanks, Ulmers! 

I really like chocolate, and I’d like to eat more fair trade chocolate and less regular chocolate. There was an African guy at BYUH who started an organization to help stop child labor in the cocoa plantations in Africa. Well Africa it’s called. Anyway, I can do more to help the world. I’m not saying that me eating fair trade chocolate will change the world, but anyway, it’s better than regular stuff, and like 5x more expensive, but that’s okay. You get what you pay for. 

So Dad called me up about 9 this morning asking about berry picking across the bay. I was cozy in bed at the time, waking up, and thinking about spending a nice day at home taking care of stuffs. I hadn’t even moved to look out the window yet so I didn’t know the daily weather report. My pops said it’d be good to go, but maybe we could go next week too, when it was sunnier. So I decided to think about it, and was feeling kind of tired to adventure. Summer can wear us out up here with lots of visitors, work, and play! Fortunately I have been getting plenty of sleep, but I still get tired. But thank you naps! Oh these baby free, pregnant, summer days. They’re good ones. Looking forward to holding a sweet babe though. 

I decided to go berry picking. I felt like I should so I did. I took Edel (and Piper) for a nice morning walk and playtime, then came home and got ready. I showered, ate some flapjacks, and got a few snacks together, since we’d be gone all day. I was a few minutes behind schedule, but that can happen. 

Jakolof Bay was our destination today. I’d  only been there once before and it had been about 8-9 years. It’s an interesting little place and I want Chris to go too. So the day turned out gray and drizzly, and I’m glad! It kept some bugs away!

We had to do some bushwhacking to find some prime blueberry patches. My pops and I have done plenty of that in our time. This time it was extra worth it because holy berries!  

It was lovely to harvest from the earth’s bounty and plenty. The berries were better than I’d ever seen them, and we each just spent lots of solo time with our berry pickers, filling big ziploc bags. It was a soggy time, but the weather was pretty perf in my opinion, because very few pestering bugs! And I wasn’t hot and sticky worrying about spiders either. 

All of us were decked out in our rain gear, and we picked for a number of hours. I eventually had to pee, and that was slightly difficult, because it was a lot of layers to pull down, and I didn’t want any bugs to get my tush, nor did I want to get poked by Devils club. But alas, you got to do whatchu got to do. 

I got tired and burnt out after a couple hours, and I laid down with my berry picker and dumped berries in my mouth. Hahaha. 

I pretty much stayed in the same tiny area the whole time, with a few big, plentiful blueberry patches. At one point I trekked it up the hillside looking for more berries, but I only found some salmon berries, many of which were surprisingly dying, and lots of thick Devils club. So I decided to go back down the hill because Dad yelled over that there were more berries by my original picking patch. It’s nice he looks out for me so much. He calls me his favorite youngest daughter (or FyD) and he’s my favorite oldest dad. I’ve actually got lots of titles for Dad, many of which come from the childhood days he and Carla and I adventured around the peninsula for years. 

He came back over and we worked on a big berrylicious area together. At this point I was getting fairly wet and bit cold and was ready to be done. When the bugs came out and I had to out on the head net, I knew I was ready to head back to the boat and warm up. So I filled my fourth gallon ziploc bag, said adios to Pa, and headed through the soppy greens with a pack pack full of blueberries. Perfect. 

My backpack was kind of heavy actually, but there was no one around to listen to me complain, so I didn’t complain. I was probably walking down the road kinda funny with my berry filled pack, my berry and baby filled belly, my wet clothes, and full bowels haha. 

As soon as I got back to the boat, I took off my rain gear, put on a dry sweater, and busted out my half of my PBJ. Gotta love them. After I grabbed the tp and wipes and headed to the port a potty at the top of the ramp. And omg, it was so full of poo that I headed straight for the woods instead. So, that was good. :) 

There’s my load of berries. I didn’t get as many as Dad and our two friends, but how awesome to get so many perfect blueberries! They don’t get much better than that! I want to make muffins, lots of smoothies, flapjacks, and more muff muffs. 

Our boat ride back was nice and calm, with plenty of sea birds and sea otters and a seal on the way. We all ate snacks and talked about how great the berry picking was. 

I had a couple boats to clean as soon as we got back, and that went well. I took my fellow boat cleaner girl, Annie, a little bag of blue berries and she was delighted. I’m really grateful she’s in the harbor and that we’ve both been cleaning for 10+ summers. It’s always good to see her. We bring each other treats sometimes and that’s fun. One year she shares some smoked salmon with me, and it was one of the first times I had enjoyed it. And she’s brought me yummy muffins she’s made too. Good stuff. Muff muff. 

At night, it was great to get back home to Edelweiss and our cats and our clean, welcoming home. Oh how I love our home and I love being here. I watched toy story 2, looked at great deals on Craigslist for baby stuff, and I somehow ate a delicious pint of Belgian chocolate haagendaz. Oops. I’m not sure how I ate it all… One delicious, chocolaty bite at a time I guess! I only regret half of it, because what a not healthy load of sugar and fat for me and bebe, but a girl’s gotta have dinner! ;) 

I’d like to find some delicious and healthier ice cream that is nice and chocolatey and doesn’t take advantage of child labor or cocoa plantations and doesn’t mistreat milk cows. :) Normally I get the talenti double dark chocolate gelato which is delish. Yum. But it’s really important to me where my food comes from and I like to be aware and mindful, ideally, not that I always am. 

Guess I should just be eating my delicious blue berries! So grateful for harvest times here in Alaska in our lovely summer. What a good place for us to life and be.