PYO

I haven't been to a PYO (pick your own) farm in a loooong time.  I can't even remember last time I went.  This morning, a friend posted that a local PYO had ripe black raspberries ready to pick.  I got this crazy look in my eyes, and I said, "Get your shoes on kids, we are leaving NOW."  I love black raspberries.  LOVE them.  I almost never see them in the store, which is sad.

Now, let me tell you how motivated I was to get these berries.  I didn't look at the weather.  Rain or shine, we were getting black raspberries.  I didn't pack lunches.  I grabbed water and sunscreen and ran right out the door.  The trip there was fine.  As we pulled into the parking lot, Daniel,who has apparently started to suffer from motion sickness in the past few weeks, vomited everywhere.  I thought about just stripping him down and wiping out his car seat, but it was too much of a mess.  So home we went, got him re-clothed, and wiped down the car seat as best as possible.  And then we turn around and drove right back out there.  As we are getting out of the van, Sophie developed the most ridiculous nose bleed I've ever seen, and we waited it out.  It finally stopped, but not without a pretty fantastic mess all over her clothing.  If you are going to bleed all over yourself, doing it right before you are going to be covered in bright red berry juice is a good idea - nobody will ever know.

So we finally made it out to the fields, and were able to pick 9 pints of of black raspberries.  They are wonderful.  The lady told us to eat as many as we liked while picking, which Daniel, on a now empty stomach, considered a personal challenge.  He probably ate a pint on his own!  Eli ate 1 berry and said they didn't taste good.  I can't even understand it.

These boys are great berry pickers!

"MORE BAYEEEES!!!  MORE BAYEEEEEEEES"

Sophie loved picking as well, though she was far less
tolerant of the fact that berry bushes have thorns.
 Also, she forgot a hair band, and all I had was a clothes pin.