Buried in Berries. What a Jam Jamberry!

Our kids love the book Jamberry by Bruce Degan, but I'd never thought we'd be living it until we moved here. We picked blackberries this year and found out about "blackberry brambles." Blackberries are Washington's answer to North Carolina's kudzu--with a few "pointed" exceptions: yummy delicious sweet berries, vicious jump-out-and grab-you thorns.

This is where we picked our blackberries. It's a house just down the street from us. We aren't sure where the front door is. The kids call it the Sleeping Beauty house. We just picked berries around the hidden trucks. Blackberries grow so fast here.

The end result of our work was 4 pints of blackberry jam, and 7 pints of blackberry pie filling. Oh, a few scars on legs and arms.

We've also been picking blueberries this year--much easier than blackberries.

There is a park in Tacoma that has free blueberries. Volunteers keep it us. They have over 3000 bushes there. You can pick to your hearts content.

We went with Esther and her kids. Lily even had her own little bucket.

Of course she ate more than she picked. She is a blueberry fiend. She loves all fruit actually. I got a water bath canner this year and put it to work canning apricots, peached, pears, applesauce, and pizza sauce (from our own tomatoes.) I worked with a couple of other ladies and on each marathon canning session, Lily helped us out by sampling the produce (and then putting them back in the box for us to find). By the way, never try to put up 240 lbs of pears at once. Believe me, it's not a good idea. Anyone want pear sauce?