Blueberry Picking in Enumclaw

I did not realize that Washington was such a berrylicious state. Am I the only one? In July, a friend mentioned to me that the berries grow so wildly, you can stop off on the side of the road and fill bucket upon bucket. When my parents visited and we went to Rattlesnake Lake, there were berries growing along the pathways.

Then, the moms group that I creep on (and will someday participate in) went blueberry picking. So, the boys and I decided to make a morning of it and check things out.

Gabriel now refers to it as "my mountain." Because I tell him it's mine everytime I see it. Hah.

This is the Rusty Plow Farm in Enumclaw.  It's so adorable, with a cute little barn house at the front where you can check out your buckets and receive instructions for how and where to pick.

Did you know there were different kinds of blueberries? I had no clue! On that particular day, we were picking Liberty blueberries, which ripen towards the latter end of the summer. Each fruit has a delicious aroma and tasty flesh, making them a very popular choice.

The fruit are well exposed, making them very easy to pick. You can actually just brush them off the branch and into your bucket! Liberties makes delicious jams, jellies and desserts because they are so juicy and robust.

The day we chose to go, it was blazing hot, but we knew we had to get out of the house, otherwise the kids and I would all drive each other crazy.

This was obviously pretty early on, since we walked out of there with 1.5 gallons of blueberries...

Jonas ended up getting bored and/or hot, so he posted up with a bucket of blueberries under the shade and ate them just about as quickly as I could fill it.

They were so cute. Gabriel's goal was to fill up his bucket as quickly as possible. He slowed down after about 10 minutes.

The blueberry plants were really quite beautiful, I wish you could tell from the pictures. The blueberries that come off of the Liberty plants are the most gorgeous shade of powder blue.

Overall we spent about an hour, between the exploring, sitting down for blueberry eating breaks and getting our bucket paid in full. It was definitely worth experiencing and we came away with lots of blueberries for the freezer. I love knowing that the blueberries we use will have been picked by us!

For good measure, because I love my mountain!

The strainer really doesn't do the amount of blueberries justice, but just know that it was A LOT. And just so you know that I made good use of them...

Because blueberry pie made me do it. And it was damn good!