Raspberry Fields

Saturday August 18th was the day we went out to pick raspberries as a family, knowing that this might be the only “picking” we do this year as a family.  For at least the past five years we’ve had a great deal of trouble finding farms that are open for “U-pick” anything and I’m finding that I should no longer take these experiences for granted.  Many of the farms that promised one kind of berry or another earlier in the summer ended up having the crops they did have eaten by birds even before the fruit was ripened; the birds were that desperate for hydration.  Finally we found a farm, kept track of their updates all week and the last Saturday of the summer we headed out to the Homestead Berry Farm as a family for some fun.

Ironically the owners had children named Nathan and Kaitlyn!  Nathan did a great job picking this year and as he felt tempted in that field to eat a raspberry he decided he LOVED them!  Yeah, he snuck a few.  Still warm with sun this IS the best way to eat them.

Rick and Haley worked hard with Rick finally wandering over to the couple of rows of blackberries they had.  Nathan ended up going to help Rick pick blackberries and they picked what few were remaining.  While this was a very nice day; rare having upper 70’s in August for sure, Tristan couldn’t believe we’d talked him into wearing jeans!  It did get warm out in the sun and I figured there had to be some humidity making the temperature seem a little warmer.  This was probably the coolest it’s ever been while we’ve been in a field picking anything around here.  It was very nice comparatively.

We picked as many of these beauties as we could.  Many were so over ripe that I knew I would have to do something with these berries quickly.

If we got down low and moved the leaves aside there were plenty.  Even though we left home before 9 a.m. we live so far from any farm that we were not the first people out picking that day and the berries had been heavily picked just the day before.

I love these sweet smiling faces.  We each picked a basket and we all helped with Nathan’s as well as a spare.

The chickens were running around the backyard right next to the field.  Tristan really wants a backyard full of chickens now and surprisingly chickens are allowed as backyard pets in our city.  While this is appealing to a degree I’m not positive I’m ready to make this commitment yet PLUS I’m not sure we would endear ourselves to the neighbors.  It’s one thing to have a few chickens out in the yard or five kids out in the yard but I’m not sure BOTH would be overlooked.  We live in pretty close quarters all around but I’m sure the cats would love it!!!

$20 bought us a flat of fresh berries.  We paid at the stand, loaded the van and went on our way for a picnic.  On the way to pick berries we’d seen a sign for a state park which sounded better than a nearby park that we’d picked out so that’s how we found John Bryan State Park. 

We found a beautiful little picnic area as we were driving through the park and so we decided to stop and enjoy this clearing; a great spot for eating with room for running around too.

Of course we had raspberries for lunch as well as carrot sticks, pretzels, pickles and a Pizza Salad.  For dessert we enjoyed a mix of chocolate and vanilla pudding with mini M&Ms added on top.

We also had LOTS of lemonade.

The meadow was beautiful and had several trail heads we decided to explore after lunch.  The children loved having space to run and play together as they giggled.

My five kiddos playing around together.  Then we got a call to look at the old man running around with a cane!  Glancing over as we were cleaning up we saw quite a sight; funny Tristan darting around through the grass with break neck speed while hunched over holding a stick.  He reminded me so much of my brother David acting goofy and making us all laugh when he was younger.

With full tummies and our thirsts quenched we walked along the edge of the meadow admiring the Queen Anne’s Lace until we found a trail head leading into the woods.  We weren’t sure exactly what we’d find or how long the trail was but we always enjoy a good hike.

Nathan is really going to miss his sister when she starts school I realized, not for the first time, as they walked along holding hands being “best buddies”. Later, when Haley asked Kaitlyn if she wanted to hold hands Kaitlyn responded “No Thank you! I have to learn how to hold my own hand now.” Pretty perceptive, I’d say.

Tristan and Lindsay are good friends.  They enjoy walking and talking together and goofing around.  My hope is that Kaitlyn and Nathan will also remain good friends.

Kaitlyn and Nathan rest on their “couch”.  Nathan must hurry to catch up after pausing to investigate all of the little pebbles.  And as I looked up some of the trees were showing the first signs of autumn in a beautiful way, though decidedly mid-August is a little early for this.

Next to our traveling path was a steep drop off.  This caught my children’s interest and made me a little nervous a couple of times.

This trail turned out to be fabulously interesting as it went along down to a gorge below.  This gorge is not nearly the size of any that I grew up near but it was impressive non the less.  I was very surprised that I’ve lived here for 18 years now and I’ve never heard of this gorge that is only a little over an hour away.  We had just seen a sign for this state park we’d never heard of as we drove on the expressway. 

Not was there just a gorge either.  There were caves!  One of the caves gave permission to go inside of it and investigate.  Tristan says we must come back and bring flash lights with us next time.  The last picture on the right is our rocky walking path.

The trails were fantastic and the scenery beautiful.  The kids took notice of a man hiking this barefoot and didn’t see how this would be possible with as rocky as this path was.

After a good hike down we reached the bottom.  There are signs posted preventing people from splashing in the water and everyone appeared to be obeying this.  The kids were a little bummed about this.

As we walked along the bottom of the gorge we got to pass next to these caves that run right to the water.  My thinking is that this area is normally supposed to be quite a bit wetter.  We are down 8 inches of rain for the year and it’s been over 300 days since we had one or more inches of rain fall at once.

More interesting landforms and boulders to see.  We crossed this bridge and found paths for “scientists only” which made a few of us think of the movie “2012”.  There was a campground path as well which we were prohibited from traveling on.  There seemed to be many more paths unlabeled that went all through this park.

The fallen tree was an interesting sight; its roots spreading out huge next to the height of my children.

We found the sign for the gorge trail as we were about to start heading back up to our picnic meadow quite a ways up.  And we also came across a sign pointing out an existing path that used to be the stage coach trail from Cincinnati to Pittsburgh in the 1800’s.  We thought that was pretty amazing and it got our imaginations churning.

After a couple of hours hiking down and back up the trails and a morning at the farm it was time to make our way back to the car for the drive home.  It was a fantastic day and a wonderful way to spend some family time as we said an unofficial goodbye to summer and turned our thoughts toward preparations for school.