Blueberry Picking

Today was a beautiful (though hot) day; we spent much of the afternoon berry- and peach-picking, which we had been planning to do for awhile now. We were going to pick apples too, but since we're going out of town pretty soon and don't want a lot of fruit sitting around rotting in our house while we're gone, we thought we should save the apple-picking for later this summer. We have plenty of fruit anyway between the 6.5 lbs of blueberries and 7 lbs of peaches that we picked today!

With food prices getting so steep at the grocery store, picking your own fruit seems like an even better deal these days, even if it does require some hard labor (but that's the fun part of it, right?) :) Blueberry-picking is definitely labor-intensive, which explains why they're so expensive in the store. Once many of the lower ones on the bush are picked (which was the case when we went today), it's a lot harder since you have to reach to the top branches and pull them down. But, we got quite a few nice, plump berries out of it, which will be good for smoothies, cobbler, pancakes, and whatever else we put them in.

There were quite a few dragonflies flying around during our picking, and Ben got several great close-up pictures, like this one:

It began raining just before we picked peaches, so we didn't get pictures of that, and we had to pick them rather hurriedly anyway since we were getting wet.

Next weekend we head to California to the Eastern Sierras for vacation (Yosemite area). We cannot wait! I'm sure we'll have many pictures from that when we return. Until then, hope everyone is having a good summer.

Company Time

Well, it's already mid-July--hard to believe. We just finished two weekends in a row of company, and now we have a two-week interlude before leaving for vacation. The first weekend of company was my grandmother, who as I posted previously came up for July 4th. Pictures of that are below, as are pictures of this most recent weekend, when our friends Courtney and Eric, and their (very adorable!) eight-month-old, came to visit. They were college friends of mine (and now of Ben's) and it was so good to spend quality time with them! Both weekends were wonderful! (By the way, I would love to post the cute pics of their baby, but I don't want to do that without their permission, so for now it's just these pictures of all of us...)

July 4th weekend:

Grandma, Ben and me at the Governor's Palace garden in Colonial W'burg

Grandma and me on the ferry

Red, white and blue! (colonial hats and Red, White & Blue Cheesecake that I made)

Cow Appreciation Day

In case you would have missed it, just a quick post to remind everyone that Friday (July 11) is that long-awaited holiday: Cow Appreciation Day. Indeed, as the Chick-fil-A Web site's cow says, "Dress like me. Git free chikin." Basically, you have to dress up like a cow, and if you dress from "head to hoof" like one, you get a free combo meal; partial cows get a free entrée. Details here: http://www.cowappreciationday.com/

Jamestown Chickens

Well, it was a cloudy and rainy 4th of July here in the 'Burg, unfortunately. My grandmother arrived yesterday morning, and we mainly took her to see the colonial area, including tours of the Capitol and the Governor's Palace (she had been here a long time ago, but not recently, to visit, and even then she didn't ever do very much while here). It poured rain during lunch (we ate late), and then stopped for a little, but then it began drizzling again and it did that on and off the rest of the evening. We did get to see a couple songs by the Fifes and Drum Corps, but we ended up leaving at around 8:15 since it was still raining and appeared that the fireworks might be cancelled. It was miserable with the wetness, plus all the crowds. So, we ended up watching the Capitol 4th show on TV for our fireworks. Sorta sad, but oh well--it's the first time I've ever not seen fireworks on the 4th, I think--and there is always next year!

Today we went to the Jamestown Settlement, and one of the things we saw besides all the historic stuff of course was a family of chickens. They were so funny digging into the crowd with their claws, making space so the baby chickens could find food on the ground. It was too cute not to take a video, so here goes with our first blog video. (We tried this once before and it froze during processing--we decided to try a shorter video this time in hopes it will actually work!)

Tonight we went to an evening program at CW and tomorrow we hope to get to some more CW stuff plus Yorktown. We are certainly packing a lot in, but we want my grandma to see as much as possible to make the most of her trip! Well, that's all for now. More later this week sometime!

Happy 4th

Tomorrow is July 4th - America's "birthday" so to speak. I've always loved Independence Day, and celebrating it in Williamsburg makes it seem like more than just a holiday. It seems more like a sacred day, but not a serious sacred day - a day of rejoicing and freedom. As a Christian, I suppose it's because I believe America was not founded by happenstance but through divine guidance and providence. That's what our Founding Fathers and those who signed the Declaration of Independence believed, and they were very clear in their statements that America would only succeed as a nation because of the morality of the people and the nation's commitment to biblical principles. Today, we're seeing a threat to America, not just without but from within, where people have abandoned that commitment. Not everyone has abandoned it, of course, but more than ever before, I think. I believe it's a result of our great prosperity and wealth, which traditionally has always been the downfall of a kingdom or nation. Nevertheless, today we do still have a great deal of freedom compared to many people around the world. We really should be more grateful for it, but I think it's hard since we don't know anything else!

We are going to town tomorrow to see some of the festivities--they do a reading of the Declaration of Independence and a vast array of other activities. And of course there are the fireworks along with the fifes and drums corps playing tomorrow night (to which MANY many people go, often coming from all over Virginia and farther!!). It will be great fun (hopefully not too hot) and we'll post pictures next week sometime if we get any good ones. Until then, Happy 4th of July!