Almost Convinced

This is my husband. Isn't he cute? {Don't answer that, he's my husband.}

He took me blackberry picking last weekend. He might shouldn't have. Because... there were NO mosquitoes {or so I thought} and in a matter of minutes I was very close to selling my house and moving to the country. I leaned over to him at one point and said, "It is dangerous for me to be here right now. I'm really having a good time and the mosquitoes aren't biting." He smiled.

And pick we did.
And pick did the kids.
And pick did the other kids that joined us.

Meet Benjamin, Luke & David. Cute boys. Good boys. Very sweet boys.

They were some berry pickin' and berry eatin' boys too.

I think the kids ate as many as they picked. I kept threatening Paige with "you're going to get diarrhea". Kids aren't scared of "dia-wee-ah". At least not mine.

And I know David's not scared of dia-wee-ah either. I think he ate 95% of the blackberries his daddy picked. He doesn't look scared, does he?

We consolidated our little buckets of berries {or what was left of our berries after the 2-year olds worked them over} into a big bucket of berries.

For a while we stood around waiting for Justin. He must have come upon a good patch. We were all picked out but not Justin. He had that hat on and was good to pick for another hour or two.

Finally he picked his limit and we all headed back to the "Mule" {it's not really a mule, it's something else but I don't know what to call it... it's an all-terrain vehicle that holds more than one person, but it's not a 4-wheeler... so let's call it a "Mule"}.

And Justin took us on a driving tour of the property. Justin's parents have beautiful property and he serves as "land manager" and a fine land manager he is. In fact, there was only one roadblock and we put our friend Ben {father of the boys} right on that.

Thanks, Ben.

Then we headed to the swamp.

Can you see what Justin is telling Ben? Something like, "We need to get out of here quick. There are thousands of mosquitoes that are about to swarm the Mule and make Darby go nuts and she'll never want to move to the country with me ever!"

He was right. That's all it took and I changed my mind. I got 3 bites in 32 seconds and I became totally erratic and said, "COME ON LETS GO I'M GETTING EATIN ALIVE PLEASE HURRY THEY'RE ATTACKING HURRY NOW DON'T WAIT ANOTHER SECOND."

Then Justin apologized to Ben for my behavior and told him I didn't really care for mosquitos, as if that wasn't obvious.

The Mule safely delivered us to higher, dryer, and mosquito-free land.

Before packing up we checked on our garden & blueberries! Both of which were looking mighty fine. It won't be long before we're picking blueberries!

We grabbed a few things from the garden before we left.

Zukes, cukes, maters, squash, and banana peppers.... mmm!

And by the looks of the corn it won't be long 'til we're pickin' that too!

I started almost all of our veggies from seeds this year and it is so rewarding to see large, healthy plants. When I planted the seeds I thought, "These are going to take forever to grow!" Not so. Look at the maters.

They're clear up to my armpits.

Kids are up... be back soon with another from the garden recipe.