Cousins and Blackberries

This week we were able to enjoy two of our favorite things:cousins and blackberries. We had John-David's brother Richard and his family, my cousin Marsh and his family and John-David's sister Alycia and her husband all over for Sunday dinner. Unfortunately I forgot to take more pictures but I did get this picture of Jackson and Marshall junior. Jackson had big plans of things what him and Marshall were going to do once he came. He wanted them to wear batman costumes, climb the tree in the backyard and to play with his evil castle(a cardboard box painted with toilet paper rolls glues to the side, it's very high tech). We took a picture to verify dreams were fulfilled. We had a really fun time with everyone. Maybe next time I'll remember to take pictures.
I never knew that I liked blackberries until I moved to Ohio. One day while wandering the countryside we discovered this lovely blackberry farm. The berries were relatively cheap, we could drive up to the bushes and the berries were good. And so my black berry jam obsession began. I was very sad to leave the blackberry bushes behind as I moved to Pennsylvania but I knew it wouldn't take me long to get the blackberry itch and discover a new blackberry patch. I found one about 10 miles from my house. Today, myself and my 3 side kicks ventured to this new patch.
My first worker wasn't too interested in working but thought that dumping the berries out was fun or carrying the full containers to me was really helpful. She got fired.

My second worker was good, for the time he worked. He doesn't like fruit so he wasn't a threat to decreasing the bounty we were collecting which was a bonus. He decided to try one which is a very bold move for him but I figured it was going to go south, which literally it did. He took one bite and spit it out. Obviously his spitting aim isn't great because the hem of his shirt caught the berry remnants. Well, there went that worker. He was done for the day because he had berries on his shirt which he was too mad to work. I think he was Union anyhow. Now my third worker was a real gem. She told me that she wasn't even going to eat one berry and that is saying a lot for my fruit bat. Aside from the fact her feet got wet which was too much for her to handle she really pulled through for the team. She stayed with me the whole twenty minutes it took to pick our berries. Although I think I must of worn her out because while she was helping me mash the berries when we got home she said, "Why don't we just buy jam?" Apparently she didn't think this labor intensive process of making jam was fun. Some people's kids!

Despite what all the nay sayers say, at least I will enjoy yet another year of blackberry jam.