Raspberry Daze

I hadn't really heard of Oregon linked to berries until I got here. But apparently, we grow berries. Lots of them. When I am driving through the countryside on the way to stores of mine, I often pass berry farms, all laden with signs advertising their u-pick "services." And by "service" of course I mean that you come to the farm, do all the work picking the berries and then pay them for the privilege. I was a bit of a skeptic. Shouldn't I be paying someone to pick the berries for me? But Amy thought the kids might get a kick out of it, so we tracked down a berry farm and headed up into the hills.

We went to Smith Berry Barn, which was so beautiful and idyllic that my cynicism was replaced by a desire to become a farmer and grow berries and raise chickens with cool hairdos, like this one:

At the farm you get a wagon and a bunch of buckets and you head off to the raspberry fields (patches? herds? I don't know) and pick to your hearts content. Then you pay $1.50 a pound. It's a steal, because you eat 3 times as many berries as you pick. Here are some things I learned about berry farming:
1. Real raspberries are HUGE

2. Some raspberry bushes don't have thorns. SCORE!

3. Blackberry bushes have A LOT of thorns, but as your hands are bleeding and in agonizing pain you can't stop picking the blackberries because they are so incredibly good and sweet. I think about 8 made it into the bucket and I ate about 412.
4. Lila can eat berries as fast as you can pick them, right out of the bucket, or your hand, or wherever she can snatch them from.

5. Amy and I could have picked berries all day.

6. The kids got bored after a while. This is, after all, the work that we pay immigrant workers less than a fair wage to do!

We lost the kids in the canes several times, and we lost our camera bag and we lost our will to not eat berries by the handful, because we never stopped eating.

I noticed the sold berry plants there as well and said to Amy, "We should buy some raspberry bushes!" And she, wisely, said, "Why? We can come here whenever we want and pick as much as we want." True dat.

After picking for a while. I hung out with the kids and fed grain to goats and chickens while Amy pilfered more buckets of berries. Lila thought the chickens and goats were awesome.

And they were pretty fantastic. The goats were cute and licked the kids hands while they fed them (gross, but charming.) And the chickens were all different and beautiful in a weird, chickeny sort of way. Here is one of the others we saw

What is that? Fur? If I ever make millions selling my novel and don't need to work, I want to go grow berries on a farm in the Oregon hillsides and raise funny looking chickens.

Was I concerned that Lila was getting licked by goats and eating the goat feed herself? Well....kinda. She's eaten worse.

We came home with quite a haul. 3 boxes of raspberries, two flower baskets, an a raspberry shake. It was great - and we will definitely be back. 

And this is what we made with it when we got home:

Fresh Raspberry Pie. Which I ate about 7/8ths of. And then my eyes turned into raspberries. And then I ate my eyes. 

Tell me again why you haven't planned a trip out here to visit us?