17 August 2012

No Sé

It's been quite some time since my last blog post. At first that was because we had a lot going on. Scott was in Europe with his dad and brother, and I was occupying myself at home. Despite how much I rolled my eyes when I informed everyone why Scott was missing, I am extremely excited that he was able to travel Europe and especially glad that he visited Paris, even if I wasn't his tour guide!

There's another reason why I have been absent from the internet. On Tuesday I was in a car accident on my way to work. I was the driver of the third car of a chain reaction rear ender. Scary time, but I walked away with my first fractured nose and the chance to car shop again. I have been resting for the last few days, and Scott and I have been blessed with great friends who are so willing to help us in any way they can!

Most of Scott's medical school class knows what has been going on because Morgan and I were car pooling together on the day of the accident (Morgan, thankfully, is recovering well, too!). Not to mention that word travels fast in Lebanon! A few of Scott's closest buddies wrote me a Get Well Soon card with this cartoon:

It's pretty punny! If you don't get it (like me when I first read it), you may need some Spanish translation and a reminder of where my fracture is. Thanks to everyone for the well wishes. I hope to be fully recovered soon! Then maybe I'll feel confident enough to post a picture of my bruises and smooshed car.

03 August 2012

Springbank Farm - Lebanon

When my parents so graciously brought Scott back from Medford, I took advantage of their trip and knees by having them come out with me to pick blueberries. Both of my parents are expert berry pickers, harvesting berries from coast to coast. We decided to try a new berry picking spot this year and went to Springbank Farm in Lebanon, Oregon.

The farm is family-owned and employs local teens to help with the picking and sorting of the many varieties of blueberries on their farm. Something I noticed that was interesting about the farm was that they didn't have any nets covering their blueberries, even though I'm sure there are many birds. Instead, they have a speaker system throughout the 12-acres of blueberries that periodically plays a tune of raptor bird songs, I'm assuming to keep the berries on the bush.

When we arrived at the farm there was a sign showing which varieties and rows were available for u-pick that day. My husband turned to me and said, "Did you call ahead to let them know we were coming?"

There must have been an influencial Chandler in the agriculture industry because there are chandler varieties of so many fruits: chandler strawberries, chandler walnuts, chandler pomelos, and chandler blueberries.

We chose to pick in a lane that had Legacy blueberries on one side and Chandler blueberries on the other. After eating and picking and eating and picking, I'm not sure that I can say with certainty what the difference between the two varieties is, but I can say that I very much enjoyed the Chandler blueberries. My mom even said she "really liked the Chandlers." We obviously took that as a compliment.

U-pick at Springbank Farm was $1.75/lb this summer (or at least on the day we picked). There were so many blueberries to pick and many of the blueberries were very large. I prefer picking small to medium size berries as they are  sweet, tart, and almost candy-like. With my parents help, and even with their cut of the berries, we were able to fill our freezer with bags and bags of fresh blueberries for pancakes, and blueberry compote, and muffins all winter long!

Many, many thanks for your manual labor coming, Mom and Dad!