On one of our first weekends in Alaska (after leaving Quarantine and having a vehicle to use) we decided to join our neighbor Mary Starr at the Big M Farm where you get to pick and pay for fresh prod located about 1.5 hours from where we live
The drive was super lovely but very bumpy due to the frost heaves in the road.
The main goal of the trip was to pick raspberries as Mary had just run out of raspberry jam made by her mother who had recently passed away. So they were hoping to get enough to make lots of jam.
For every 5 berries I picked, Camille or Zach or one of the other kids ate one.
Hazel made friends with Elizabeth and the 2 of them had fun picking Saskatoons which are blueberry-like berries that are a little more course and have some fine seeds in the middle and also have a thicker skin. I overheard one of the ladies picking near us state that the saskatoons have more antioxidants than blueberries. I have not bothered to fact-check that.
Charlotte had fun picking berries with Ben who is about her age.
Here is Zach walking spontaneously with Andrew Starr hand in hand.
Andrew is about 3 years old. Zach is 5-1/2. Not sure we have the potential for tall children...
Carrot picking was super fun. I took the kids (Starrs and our Nielson kids) out to the field we discovered some fun shapes. This one was immediately named the Mandrake (Harry Potter book 2 for reference).
The carrots were SOOO delicious.
I was sorry when we ran out and had to go back to the store-bought produce which is a little more bitter compared to the fresh carrots
Here is Diana. Babies at this age are so fun. She basically slept in my arms for 2 hours.
The kids picked some squash and some cool peas as well (2 shades of green and some purple peas)
The squash was AMAZING. The flavor and texture was so good and as we chunked off pieces at a time it just seemed to last for a really long time without molding which was impressive
I know that pictures never really capture the moment but I had to stop on the way back and pull over to take a picture of the valley.
Our intention that morning was to spend no more than 1-hour picking but that 1 hour turned into 2.5-3 hours (I knew it would). So on the way back we stopped at McDonalds and ate in the back of our pickup truck. Doesn't feel more American than that.
Here are some of the berries we picked. The golden raspberries had a more sweet and consistent flavor vs the red which are more tart and variable in sweetness. In the end here is how the vote came out:
Likes Golden Raspberries more: Fred, Hazel, Charlotte
Likes Red Raspberries more: Zachery
Neutral (likes them both): Jari and Camille
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