Yesterday we went blackberrying.
I was unavoidably reminded of Little Sal picking blueberries and hearing them go ku plink, ku plank, ku plunk in her pail, which never filled up because she kept eating them. Especially because everybody ate a lot, especially Eliane!
The kids had a great time. Liam said "Let's put blackberrying on the calendar for February 4 as soon as we get one for next year."
We happened to know that some other children from Mikaela's kindergarten were going out to the same patch this morning, so we tried to stick to berries kindergarteners couldn't reach (Mikaela was excepted from this rule for obvious reasons!), but there were gazillions more we simply couldn't get to. One of the kindergarten parents going out today suggested bringing some planks of wood to get deeper in, and I could see why.
We picked about 2 & 1/2 litres between us. Apparently there are lots of wild blackberries around Canberra, And I've lived here most of my life, but this is the first time I've ever been berry picking. It's scandalous!
We had pancakes with blackberries for dinner last night (those of us who hadn't so stuffed ourselves while we were picking that they couldn't eat another bite), a blackberry smoothy for morning tea today, and of course, blackberry pie for dessert tonight (with ice cream and, you guessed it, blackberries).
Mmm, Yum. I don't think I've ever had blackberry pie before. Australians aren't really the big pie eaters that Americans are. Normally I guess I'd just have the fresh berries on their own, or with cream and ice cream (for a dessert). Actually we did that too - after the pancakes! But we had over two litres of berries to use, and this pie used nearly 5 cups. I don't think we could have got through that many fresh. Not on top of the other litre we ate!
We could have frozen them of course, or made berry preserves for winter. Hmm, maybe we'll have to go blackberrying again next weekend!
