Picking Sand Plums

Yesterday evening, after I cleaned the card that my lovely little boy decided to cover in DE (diatomaceous earth), Josh and I went out to pick sand plums at a friends farm.  Funny story about the DE actually.  We were on our way to a neighboring town to get our cut sheered.  We pulled into the drive of the groomer when I heard a pop and a white dust storm filled the car.  I turned around to see that my dear son had a bag of DE on his lap and was covered head to toe in white.  So was the car!  After going through a range of emotions, I decided it was best to laugh about it and we brushed off the best we could and continued with our plans.  It only took me 3 hours to clean up and now my car looks new again.  Thank God for blessings that are disguised.

One of the bushes that we picked from.  They were loaded!

We got directions from a friend out to their bushes and started the several mile drive.  As we were driving down the dirt road, we could see that we were coming up on the bushes.  They are pretty easy to spot in ditches, if you know what you are looking for.There were several bushes and all of the bushes had tons of berries on them, ripe and ready for us to pick!  We got out of the car with our bags in toe and began to strip the bushes of their bounty.

Josh was taking pictures of me picking.

From across the bush.

While we were picking there was a lot of things to watch, hear, and smell.  We could hear quail in the distance, humming of the wind turbines in the near by field, and cracks of twigs when grasshoppers jumped.  I love the calm of the country.

Lots of berries to pick.

After about 45 minutes of picking, we gathered about 10 pounds of berries.  Not to bad!  We took them home and put them in a bowl.  Today, I will throw them in a crock pot with a bit of water and boil them down.  

To be continued...