Dewberry Time!

In past years, the land directly across the street from us was our "dewberry picking" spot.  It was a soybean field that had not been planted in quite a while.  It was plowed infrequently and became a prime spot for dewberries.  Well, the land was sold by the doctor who owned it to a developer.  It was plowed up, and we lost our dewberry spot.

Not to worry.  On the neighboring property behind us, just behind the hen house, there is another patch of land that has grown up in weeds.  The owners are absentee.  From time to time, I'll clean it up with a machete and I'll let the cows and goats in to eat down the weeds.  This piece of land also has dewberries!  On a beautiful Saturday morning, I rounded up Tricia, Russ, Benjamin and Belle to come help.  We each had buckets and we fanned out and picked dewberries.

Tricia was a little concerned about snakes.  To be sure there are snakes in abundance.  We now have two fake eggs missing from the hen house.  No doubt they were eaten by snakes.  Snakes who now have a REALLY bad case of constipation - they aren't going to be able to digest a ceramic egg!  Regardless, most of the snakes in the area are harmless rat snakes, king snakes, and garter snakes.  We still kept our eyes open.  The dewberries were easy to spot.

They were plump and delicious.  Benjamin seemed to pick more than all of us.  We were eating and picking as we walked through the area.  Pretty soon we were done.  In just a few minutes, we picked a half gallon.

We took them inside, washed them up, and we'll eat them in smoothies and in homemade ice cream.  Livin' off the land.  Love it!