Blueberry Pickin' for a Healthy Family

I am very concerned about my families health, what they put in their mouths, and where that food came from. We raise our own meat chickens, buy grassfed beef, have laying hens, and now there are the pigs. I have vowed to put as much fresh vegetables and fruit in my freezer this summer so that means trips to local Farmer's Markets and U-pick farms to supplement my booming squash crop and pitiful tomato crop.

So, we headed out with my good friend Penny to pick some blueberries at a U-Pick farm about 45 minutes away from our house. Of course, I had the Buckaroo's with me and they were big helpers. I kept telling them that they only needed to pick the pretty blue ones but every once in a while the Littlest Buckaroo threw in one that well, let's just say was nowhere near being ripe.

We finished a little bit before Penny did so we went to go cool off under a tree.

The Little Buckaroo decided he had not eaten enough while he picked, so he was going to eat just a few more.

I told him that some of them were not quite ripe and I had not picked those out yet. This was a good lesson in why you should listen to your mom. UGH! Yuck, spit, splahhh!

He composed himself well, I thought he might be an architect, engineer, or doctor, but maybe food taster could be an option. Well, a food taster at a bakery because I have to stuff veggies down him most of the time!
Did you know that each food item in a typical U.S. meal has traveled an average of 1,500 miles? If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country's oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week! That is not gallons, but barrels.

I urge all of you to check out your local Farmer's Market, be sure to ask the farmers if they use organic methods or synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides. Also, if you do not have a spot at home to grow a little garden to teach your children where food comes from (no it does not really come from the grocery store, there are many steps before it gets there), most farmers at the market are happy to educate your kids on their produce, how they grow it from seed until it arrives at the market in the back of their pick-up trucks.

Eat well,
The Park Wife
(with a freezer full of blueberries!)