Family.Farm.Fresh

"$4.98! I told you," I said to Aaron as I placed the pint of blueberries back on the shelf at our local grocery store. Just days before, we spent the morning at a local blueberry farm by my father's suggestion, and a wonderful time we had.
Amelia enjoyed picking blueberries from "the sticks" and it only took a moment for her to select only the blueberries, not the unripened green or red ones. At some point, I complimented her on how well she was doing, and she sweetly replied, "Thank you bery much." I couldn't help but smile to myself at her unintended pun. (The letter v can be tough for young children to pronounce at times. )

At weigh-in, our bucket full of organic blueberries was 5.5 lbs and only cost us $11.00. Yes, we saved quite a bit of money on high quality food, but even more special was that my father, husband, daughter, and I got to spend a special morning together among the blueberry bushes breathing their sweet aroma.

I hope that this will become a new family tradition-loading up the car and heading out to local farms for family picking. It's fresh, economical, and offers great teachable moments for both children and adults.

_{images by à la parisienne}

Here's a great resource for locating local farms in your area (in the U.S. and other countries)-http://www.pickyourown.org/

Simply scroll down, select your state, then you can narrow your search by counties near you.