Berry Picking!

The girls were such great workers today! We went and picked marionberries (a large domesticated breed of blackberries common around here). Mom and Dad have a few bushes that were ready for picking. The girls were in the thick of it. These are not quite as brutal as blackberries with their thorns, although in some ways they're worse-the plants are covered with very fine thorns. You can't really avoid them when trying to move stray vines out of the way. Anyhow, the girls were getting down and dirty, not even caring about their scratches! Above is Scharae's bucket. I was proud of how few red ones she picked. She loves the "pick it, drop it in bucket, pick it, drop it in bucket" routine and I didn't think she'd be too picky about what she was picking, but she didn't do half bad!

My bucket, Keira's, Scharae's. You might notice that Scharae picked like 4 times the amount that Keira did in the same time. Pretty much that's indicitive of their personalities. K has a hard time sticking with one thing for very long and talks incessantly...which gets in the way of persevering in an activity like this. BUT she has fun, and she was working as hard as I think she really could for this particular activity!

My silly berry pickers. I couldn't get a normal smile out of them. They were in rare form this morning-and that's in a good way! They were so much fun to be with and take berry picking. I remember berry picking with Grandma and Grandpa Alcorn many years. Often we'd go out to Dawn and Lloyd Ford's property on Dakota Creek and pick, or even just down at the pond. Fond, yet painful, memories...and then came strawberries when I was 12 or 13...I failed dismally at making money doing that. But at 14 I started raspberries and boy oh boy do I have so so so many memories of those years!