The Dangers of Blueberry Picking

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Picking fruit in Florida can get really ugly. We hang with gators, sun-bathing cotton mouth snakes, rattlesnakes, an assortment of mean spiders, and we all spray poisonous chemicals on our bodies to deter disease-carrying mosquitoes. You can imagine my surprise when, while picking blueberries down at Chance Creek Blues, I observed this warning:

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They forgot to mention "butterflies" and "sunshine".

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My first reaction was that the notice was a joke. The farm is located on the outskirts of Oberlin, a liberal college town full of hipster, ironic Millenials, after all.

I tested my hypothesis on the gentle college graduate manning the shed. I told him I'd been chased by a bee for a couple of feet. He looked startled and asked (very cutely and earnestly), "Ohmygosh, are you okay? You weren't stung, were you?"

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I laughed all the way to the blueberry bushes, high on being the biggest predator in Ohio. My competition that day consisted of a couple of fat beetles and grandmothers. I have to admit, I'm loving it here.

Vermilion Farmers' Markets

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Vermilion's blue skies

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I moved into my little apartment in Oberlin last Monday. Three days have passed and I'm still surrounded by boxes and bags thanks to a lovely friend native to the area. She's been introducing me to Amherst and Vermilion's many family-owned farms along Baumhart Road.

Miss K knew I wanted to pick my own strawberries, so she took me to the Aufdenkamp Family Farm yesterday. I found out that strawberry season lasts exactly one month up here. I assumed that I had plenty of time to pick them because I was used to Florida strawberry season, which lasts roughly from December to April. Silly me. So much for carpe fragaria- I'll have to pick the damn things next year.

The absence of strawberries at this particular farm was remedied by these yummy red raspberries, which I devoured the same day:

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They were way better than the black raspberries we found. I also bought sweet purple onions, but they didn't look as nice in the photos.

I don't like to function without a daily intake of strawberries, so we drove twenty feet down the road to Krieg's Strawberry Farm and Market in the hopes of finding a field for pickin'. No luck there either! I resorted to strawberries in a cute wooden basket to make myself feel better, and bought a week's worth of produce for $9.00, which is comparable to what I'd spend at Wal Mart. That's quite an accomplishment, by the way. Organic, locally-grown produce typically costs way more than good ol' corporate-grown veggies.

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Bonus: I actually received instruction for boiling corn properly from Mrs. Krieg, which I will share with you: bring salted water to a boil, pop the husked corn in the boiling water for 4 to 5 minutes, and then take it out. Add salt and butter to taste, and devour.