blue day

When we were kids, Mom (and sometimes Dad too) would take us blueberry picking in August. Usually, we were each responsible to pick at least one pail of berries to take home. Back in those days, most of the berries went in the freezer for Dad’s blueberry pancakes every Saturday morning, and Mom’s blueberry pies for special occasions.

While I’ve always enjoyed blueberries, they’ve never been my favorite fruit. However, since our farm’s expansion in 2006 to managing a five acre blueberry patch, I grew accustomed to an abundance of fresh berries from early July through the end of September.

As many berries as I wanted.

Whenever I wanted.

All.summer.long.

Grand.

These days, my family’s blueberry consumption is mainly fresh berries—handfuls and handfuls and pails and pails of them, because we all love them even more than frozen berries (although a classic week night dessert throughout the winter is a bowl of frozen blueberries).

Blueberries are a wonderful thing… a thing I hope will be discovered someday in this wonderful country.

Pretty much, life in Zambia has been sans blueberries [Betsy, did you bring a wee jar of jelly last fall??]

But, my Arizona Aunt recently sent a package full of all sorts of amazing things… including a Ziploc of dried BLUEBERRIES!

So, the other day I had blue day.

For breakfast, I put dried blueberries in my oatmeal. Plus, I had a little bowl of homemade yoghurt with a little scoop of blueberry jam! (Sara bought a jar in S. Africa… it’s a product of France!)

But wait- there’s more:

Over the past couple of weeks, I put a considerable amount of careful thought into how I would like to “spend” my dried blueberries. I settled on combining my favorite blueberry muffin recipe with my favorite yoghurt scone recipe and creating blueberry scones for tea!

What better day to observe blue day than a Saturday, when I can laze around the house and don’t need to dress professionally for work or town… so… I sported my Michigan blue t-shirt all day as well. I shared the blueberry scones with our neighbors (I love sharing goodies).

Oh- and the best part of the story: I still have more dried blueberries to enjoy another time!

While observing blue day, I thought of my family working long hours at the Berry Barn and selling as many pounds of berries as could possibly be picked for Saturday at the busiest farmers market of the season (Midland Farmers Market has around 8,000 customers on an average Saturday-- all between 7am and noon!).

It was a good blue day.

What about you? Have you observed any blue days recently?

PS- blueberries are a super food packed with antioxidants. They’re also low in calories, and have a low glycemic level compared with other fruits.