All Around The Mulberry Bush

Summer is here...  My kids are both done with their school year and are happy sleeping in.  Our home garden is going wild - it's lush and filled with different blooms daily.  On the farm we're learning what we have as we bought it during the winter.  Some things were obvious, like the gorgeous large magnolia tree we have in front of the house.  The smell of the blooming flowers wafts as you cross the front yard.  It gives me visions of many years to come of sitting on the porch with friends and family, sipping tea (or a mint julep) and smelling these fragrant blooms in the humid air.

Summer is here... as mentioned in my last blog, we found a blackberry bush in our back yard.  Yesterday I took Katie to finally see the farm and we picked a ton of blackberries.  My heart sung as I smelled the delicious tang of warm berries in a bucket.  I haven't smelled that glorious smell since we moved here 16 years ago.  I explored a couple of feet down from the patch we were picking from and found another patch with bigger berries.  I started hacking at the weeds around it and ate/picked berries to my hearts content.  I even kept picking when it started to rain... with no one watching me but a donkey or two...  I figure we have about 50' x 12' of blackberry bushes and I couldn't be happier.  I even laughed as my arms got scratched up from the bramble.  It's a badge of honor.

Summer is here...  Cherie realized while I was working last week that Bill and I have a Mulberry tree on our farm.  The conversation
   C "Hey you've got a Mulberry tree on your property"
   H "You mean bush?"
   C  "That's what I thought too, but they're actually trees.  Who knew?"
This was the same conversation with everyone I had after that... everyone thought they came on bushes lol!  Most I spoke to knew about mulberries but had never actually SEEN one.  Anyway Cherie did some picking and testing of recipes and got me excited to get my butt back to the farm to try baking with these myself.  I've gone from having to be happy with just blueberries annually to now having three types of berries to bake with in the summer... Oh Lord, mama is gonna need a diet between summer and Christmas cuz I'm not going up another pants size...

Summer is here... when you have an abundance of berries it's best to share... Berry picking is really meant to be done in groups... everyone laughing and having a good time.  This is a rite of passage for kids...  Those warm summer days with dripping berry juice everywhere.  Purple hands and chins.  So Cherie put the word out and a couple of our new friends brought their kids.  More mulberries were bagged and blackberries picked.  Kids ran around playing with the cats, goats and donkeys...  It's our new normal and I couldn't be happier. I love the simple country life where 'just so' southern living isn't a thing... where neighbors share and delight in each others gifts.  Where instead of going to the store for a bar of soap or a slab of bacon... you call the person who makes amazing goat milk soap... or the guy who raises pigs.  Supporting your local farmer and the organic lifestyle.

Summer is here... I spent the morning making a blackberry pie and a mulberry pie - so my family can do a side by side comparison.  Are they the same... similar... or completely different?  I'm so excited to be having fresh blackberry pie with a slab of vanilla ice cream on it tonight that I have to keep from pinching myself to ensure it's really happening.  I also made mulberry scones that Cherie recommended.  They're divine... I'm going to freeze whats left for my work travels after my family devours a good portion first.

Blackberries are harder to harvest but easier to work with.  You can rinse and cook without a lot of damage to the berry.  Mulberries are ridiculously easy to harvest (shake the branch and pick up what falls on your blanket) but they make blackberries look like granite in comparison with their fragility.  You can leave the mulberry stems on when you cook, but I just couldn't bring myself to do so.  I figured out if you freeze them overnight and then clip their stems while they're defrosting, they survive the de-stemming process easily.  After that, the semi frozen berry can be handled pretty much like the blackberry.

Summer is here, which means Bill and I will be working more... but I'm so ever grateful that we've somehow found a little patch of heaven that we could have days like yesterday on.  We're blessed.

Summertime and the livin is easy... mulberries are dropping and the blackberries are high...  :)

Life Repeats Itself

Earlier today my mom and I were talking about the farm... she said I was repeating history... that I'm doing exactly what my grandfather did in the 50's... he built a house in Mill Valley (which WAS country way back when)... and then sold his "city" home (in the town I grew up in) and moved... it put him in a new home with a comfortable life and no mortgage... Sound familiar yet?  I laughed because I've always been more like my grandfather than my mother when it comes to money.  #theartofthedeal... but I could kind of see what she was saying.

We had this talk as I was planting plants I had purchased for our house porch... they were beginning to fade but they were perennials (hydrangeas and lilies) and I knew if I planted them they'd be fabulous next year.  Enjoy now... enjoy forever after later.  By the time our farm house is done I will have transplanted every plant I love from our house garden into our farm garden.  The goal is to have an "English Country" garden in front of the house... and American COUNTRY everywhere else.

Speaking of everywhere else... the majority of our property was mowed this week finally.... After a few long weeks of burning and chipping everything that had fallen on the ground we were able to get our guy in to make our property look respectable again.  There were a few areas that he couldn't do... the "cut" (the railroad bed), under a couple of trees that we hadn't trimmed up to get someone under, and a section near the red head's property that we forgot to grab some huge branches from.  As we were walking along the back half of our property, towards the red heads... I saw something that made me scream with surprised joy...  can you see it???  I made Bill jump into the bramble to grab the few ripe bits of fruit I could see... real fruit... not teeny tiny dried bits I'd seen in my attempts to grow at the house we're currently in... and truly... not the jumbo sized dripping marvels of love that I grew up with... but edible... and more importantly.... cookable... BLACKBERRIES.  OMG this California girl's heart grew two sizes larger today.  I'd given up on my summer tradition of blackberry pie.... I've been making blueberry pie since I moved here... semi content with the replacement but always yearning for the pies of my youth.... for me, nothing says summer more than blackberry pie with vanilla ice cream.

Now I know my moms side of the family that's reading this understands this and is nodding their heads as they read.  It was a summer tradition for us all to converge on my grandfathers house in Mill Valley and walk the neighborhood picking BUCKETS of berries.  Scratches on your arms were badges of distinction.  We all made sure our large buckets were overflowing.  I always took enough to make one pie... and the rest went to my mom for jam.  I'm hearby declaring the tradition reinstated.  All I need is ONE pie Cherie... the rest you can make jam with...  Two California girls happy with childhood memories.

I had plenty of things to do today on the property.  But what did I do???  I liberated the berry patch from all the weeds.  Most of the people I know would consider the blackberries a weed... But when you have just under 2 acres... you can have a 12x5 patch of childhood goodness.  I went after that area with more energy in this Georgia Spring day - 85' or more... and worked my way around the patch so we could see the berries as they ripen, and more importantly REACH them... I stood for a few moments trying to decide if we'd need a "grab em stick" and had a few testers to ensure they were worth propagating... moaning in pure ecstasy with each sun warmed bite.  God I've missed a good blackberry.  Store bought is not the same.  As I was eating my last wee handful I had an epiphany.  My mom was right.  I AM doing exactly what my grandfather did, and he wanted me to know it.  These blackberries are mana from heaven courtesy of Grandpa Mackin.  As I kept attacking the weeds I started singing "Talking about Mill Valley, Mill Valley California that's my home.. that's my hooommmmeee"... Sing it with me my family!!!

Now for the rest of you just waiting for an update on the house renovation... while I was in the back 40 today, Bill gleefully attacked the built ins that are in the bedroom that will become our master bath.  We are getting closer to seeing exactly how big our shower area is going to be.  Bill said that this area was actually the best built of all the interior of the house... "you could park a truck on these things" (not completely verbatim but edited to make safe for work).

So a wee bit of gardening for me.. a wee bit of demo for him.  All in all a great day being on reserve... with my hub that is home for a few days only... I'll take it... and thank you Gramps...