Picking Blueberries - July 22, 2024 @goldenoakfarm

One of the beautiful views from the top of the mountain

On Monday morning I was up at 4AM as I had a lot to do before we left at 7:15AM. I got laundry started, my post put up, the kitchen cleaned and went to look for a blueberry box.

I tore apart the box storage area, but not a box to be found. It had been 2 years since we picked, due to the May 19th frost last year, and I had apparently found uses for all the boxes.

We had accumulated many new boxes, all of which were piled in the middle of the cellar. So I just condensed down them all and got them all back under the stairs where I, as official packrat, store them.

Under all the boxes I found all the stuff my son had evicted from the room last year. I now had shelving and a pallet to store it on, up off the floor, so I moved it all there. I didn’t clean anything, just picked up the cellar some.

I finished getting ready and my friend arrived and we headed to Benson’s for blueberry picking.

We were a bit late getting there and my intern #2 and my general helper were already there. We got loaded up and trekked part way up the hill to above the pond, a place I’d not picked before.

They started us out on this very weedy section first, saying if we cleared an area of it, we’d be moved to a much better section after.

Soon we were on the better section. We were picking next to another woman, far right. Most of the photos at Benson’s were taken by my #2 intern.

We had 60# to pick or 3 of the wooden boxes to fill. So we had to keep moving to new sections in order to do this.

These are lowbush blueberries, much smaller and more nutritious than highbush. Highbush are what you find in the stores. These look large, but it’s just the camera angle.

I was using a medium rake with 1 handle. My friend used a small one and the other 2 had one of each size.

It usually took us from 8AM to 9:45AM if the picking was good to fill 3 boxes. And we were right on schedule, even with a 15 minute late start. The girls were barefoot all day, hence the feet.

For some reason, I seldom get photos of the cleaning station. This was my intern #1 in 2022 at the outside station. This is where we worked this year too.

Some years we worked on the inside conveyors, as my husband and my friend are in 2018. She always liked the end job, as she controlled the conveyor.

[source] (https://www.penbaypilot.com/article/summer...wild-blueberry-s.../57027)
Workers on a conveyor in Maine

Ideally you want at least 4 people on the conveyor and 6 or 7 are better. It takes a long time to pick out the leaves the blower misses, the mushy ones, the red and green ones, and the withered ones. We also try to remove stems if we can.

Typically if we finished picking by 9:45AM, the cleaning is finished by 1PM and again we were right on schedule. The take home total was 70.5 lbs.

As soon as I got home, I pulled shades up and down against the sun. Then I started cleaning berries for a dessert. I also made lots of whipped cream to go on them.

My general helper had gone ahead and picked up lunch for us at the co-op that I had rewarded them with. We had the berries and whipped cream for dessert and then got started around 2:30PM.

Sometimes we’d sit and work, or stand and work, and sometimes we danced a little on our way to and from the sink.

My friend had gotten 10 lbs so we did her little box first and got it in the freezer. Then we started on my 20 lb box. The other 2 boxes that would go to Tom and my general helper were down in the cellar fridge.

We were essentially just doing a better job than we could on the conveyer. We were still after the mushy ones, the red and green ones, and the withered ones. We also removed stems this time.

My brother came home at 3PM and wanted no part of the cleaning but suggested we play some music. So I got my “moldies” from the 60’s and 70’s playing and they were welcomed.

Once the berries are cleaned, they are rinsed and left to drain. Then I packed mine in quart freezer containers. I got 12 quarts from the 20 lbs.

We finished around 6PM, right on schedule, and I sent them home with garlic, berries, and ramen and cereal I can’t eat. I got the kitchen sort of cleaned up but didn’t do the dishes.

I was so exhausted I had a hard time getting to sleep. It was to start raining in the night so I had to close the house up. On Tuesday my intern #2 is coming at 8AM and we are going to process the remaining garlic for the dehydrators. There’s about 10 lbs to do.