Manitoulin — change is in the air.

[weinoo]

At this point in my life, I look at it as if someone else can really use the money, it's not at all expensive if I can really use the blueberries (and they're great).

 

It helps the economy writ large.

[TicTac]

That is just less than what I pay.  Here the guy charges $10 for a half quart.  He had a very large basket (same shape, though perhaps 2-3 times the size of yours) filled and that was the one for $170 - he said it took about an hour to pick that much.  They use these tools with forks on them to scrape the plant of berries, which makes much faster work. 

 

Fresh wild blueberries are fantastic.  Just a bit of vanilla ice cream and that's all you I need!

 

 

[Kerry Beal]

Brandy Alexander for Anna - another dead soldier

 

[Anna N]

 

Dinner:  de-knuckled, ginger and garlic chicken drumsticks with an asparagus, green bean, bacon and egg salad dressed with a dijon vinaigrette. 

[rotuts]

those little cups are still looking good !

[Kerry Beal]

The sprig from my cocktail last week

 

[Anna N]

46 minutes ago, TicTac said:

Fresh wild blueberries are fantastic.  Just a bit of vanilla ice cream and that's all you I need!

 

Strangely, blueberries just don’t do it for me. I definitely think they are one fruit that is better cooked than not and even then it must work hard for my attention. 

[Anna N]

 Just barely got dinner finished when Kerry was called back into emergency for yet another fishhook attached to human flesh!

[Shelby]

37 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

Brandy Alexander for Anna - another dead soldier

 

Does this taste like eggnog a bit?

24 minutes ago, Anna N said:

 

Dinner:  de-knuckled, ginger and garlic chicken drumsticks with an asparagus, green bean, bacon and egg salad dressed with a dijon vinaigrette. 

YUM--and very fancy!

[Anna N]

 

Last Mango in ...  ( damn I can’t find a word that makes sense and rhymes with Paris!). 

[Anna N]

3 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Does this taste like eggnog a bit?

 It would be a stretch for me. I think this might have been the first cocktail I had.  I was goody-two-shoes so I was probably in my 30s before I had my first cocktail.

[Shelby]

5 minutes ago, Anna N said:

 It would be a stretch for me. I think this might have been the first cocktail I had.  I was goody-two-shoes so I was probably in my 30s before I had my first cocktail.

I'm so glad you've been corrupted.

[Tri2Cook]

1 hour ago, Kerry Beal said:

They’ve got you by the short and curlies if you aren’t prepared to pick your own.

 

Yep. They hit $30 for a 4 liter ice cream pail here about 4 years ago and haven't moved since so I'm expecting to see it go up. Ann always felt guilty about charging that much. I told her not to worry over it, if they didn't want to pay it nobody would stop them from going out and picking them. She had a regular that ordered 10 - 12 pails every September packed in big ziplocs and frozen. They were from the US and came here for a vacation every year then took the berries back home with them. She refused to charge them $30 a pail. I'm curious to see what they're going for this year, the annual blueberry festival starts in 2 weeks and I haven't seen adds for people selling them so they may be running late or just a bad year. I have about 16 liters or so still in the freezer that she picked. I guess when they're gone, I'll be joining the "pay it or pick it myself" crowd.  Unfortunately, I don't particularly enjoy picking... or rather, all of the bugs eating me alive that goes along with it. 

[Tri2Cook]

1 hour ago, TicTac said:

They use these tools with forks on them to scrape the plant of berries, which makes much faster work.

Those are frowned upon by the local pickers here. It adds a lot of debris to the berries and, I'm told, if not used properly, can damage or pull up the plants. Unless they're picking out the leaves, green berries and assorted other detritus before selling them, that job falls to the buyer. At that price, I better not have to do anything except eat them. Most pickers here hand pick and it's very rare to find anything in the pail other than nice ripe berries. Takes longer to hand pick but you don't have to pick through them before selling or using so it ends up pretty even time-wise in the end.

[ElsieD]

When I was in my teens I worked at whatever summer jobs I could get. This included picking strawberries, beans, and in the fall, apples , hoeing tobacco plants in the fields and working the tobacco harvest.  I started when I was 13.  I did not lack a work ethic.  One summer I decided to fit in a couple of days of picking raspberries.  I lasted the morning.  The raspberry place was about 2 1/2 miles from my house and I walked there and back.  Even I could see it just wasn't worth the effort for what I was getting paid.  I figure it must take 4 or 5 wild blueberries, volume wise to equal 1 raspberry.  No wonder they charge what they do.  I don't begrudge them a penny.

Edited July 21, 2018 by ElsieD
Changed a verb tense (log)

[curls]

1 hour ago, Kerry Beal said:

Brandy Alexander for Anna - another dead soldier

 

Sorry I can't join Anna for drinks tonight -- no cream in the house. Congratulations on another finished bottle.

[lindag]

5 minutes ago, curls said:

Sorry I can't join Anna for drinks tonight -- no cream in the house. Congratulations on another finished bottle.

In the bad old days my Mom would have used the term 'dead Indian' for the  'finished' bottle'.

No offense intended.

[Porthos]

2 minutes ago, lindag said:

...  'dead Indian' for the  'finished' bottle'.

My FIL uses "Dead Soldier" and now we also do.

[Okanagancook]

I think gooseberries are about as bad to pick as blueberries..all those prickly spikes to get around.

[Tri2Cook]

3 minutes ago, Okanagancook said:

I think gooseberries are about as bad to pick as blueberries

I don't find blueberries particularly difficult to pick other than it taking a lot of berries to fill a pail... it's dealing with being the main course for every bug within 100 km of where I'm picking that drives me out of the blueberry patch.

[Kerry Beal]

4 minutes ago, Tri2Cook said:

I don't find blueberries particularly difficult to pick other than it taking a lot of berries to fill a pail... it's dealing with being the main course for every bug within 100 km of where I'm picking that drives me out of the blueberry patch.

It's getting on my knees - actually it's getting back up after getting on my knees!

[Okanagancook]

 Last time I had a wild blueberry was on a canoe trip in Quebec when I was in my early twenties.  Just remember seeing the little worm escaping out of the last half of berries in my bowl.😲

[Tri2Cook]

52 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

It's getting on my knees - actually it's getting back up after getting on my knees!

I just bend at the waist. The back suffers the first trip or two of the season and then gets used to it. It was more Ann's thing with her sister though, I didn't go often. Except one year when they were exceptionally abundant in an area we knew about that nobody else seemed to want to mess with because it was rugged terrain to drive back to where they were. I went out with her quite a bit that year because she took on more orders than she was going to be able to fill just going out with her sister. Figured if she was working that hard to make the money it wouldn't kill me to help out when I could. 

[Katie Meadow]

About that liquor supply.....drink as much as possible until you leave. Use up the bottles with the lowest level. Well, duh. Then set aside a good drinking whiskey. Dump everything but the good sipping stuff together into a gallon jug. Pack that up to take home. Then put the whiskey bottle in the wheel well or between the two of you for the drive back.

[Tri2Cook]

30 minutes ago, Katie Meadow said:

Then put the whiskey bottle in the wheel well or between the two of you for the drive back.

I sincerely hope I'm misunderstanding what you're suggesting. I know intent can be difficult sometimes via text-based communication.