I brought up the rear as we walked from the store at Bella Organic on Sauvie Island, north of Portland, towards the blueberry U-Pick site. Rachel carried the two buckets we picked up at the store. Leland carried my folding lawn chair and the tote bag with our empty, lidded containers inside it. All of us wore straw hats and thoroughly enjoyed the sunshine. We walked all the way to the dark green trees as instructed and then turned right to cross the public road. It was not a short walk to where we were told we could pick blueberries, but it was not such a long one that I asked myself just what am I getting into here. Plus, I knew that chair would give me a rest, much like the benches where I walk in my neighborhood and at work. I am blessed.
We crossed the public road as instructed and headed for the bushes to the right of the private road--the young man had said we should pick from rows between orange cones and then pointed out that the farther you walked, the less picked over the bushes would likely be. Leland felt as if his hat would blow right off his head when we were out of the cover cover those tall trees had provided. So, Rachel's helping out with her one empty hand as Leland attempts to tighten the strap beneath his chin with his one empty hand. Team work! When I had put my hat on after we got out of the car, I tightened the strap up to my chin, and I also pulled the hat down onto my head so that it fit tightly across my forehead. Still, as we crossed that public road, I felt the front brim fly straight up, but the hat didn't budge. Whew!
Once Leland's hat felt secure, we walked down the road, then into the grass to take a look at the blueberry bushes and available shade for me and my chair. We made it not all the way down to the end of the orange cones but to a fine place for me and my chair. I rested, took a few photos, then decided to pick some blueberries. Soon, I realized as loaded as the bushes were, I could take my chair with me and pick while seated in the sunshine. It was quite comfortable, y'all. I had a blast!
Leland took a few photos, then started picking into one of the buckets. I enjoyed hearing the plop of each berry as it hit the bottom of that plastic bucket.
Leland gave me a thumbs up when he looked up from picking. Love it! And that T-shirt he's wearing. It's from where he works, Ascentec Engineering. They had a get-together on May 4, May the 4th Be With You, in honor of something they're working on about liquid hydrogen and space travel. Don't ask me for details 'cause it's beyond my frame of reference, much less remembering. Oh, and you can see that he's already loosened the strap of his hat--light breeze among the rows of bushes, nothing that would blow your hat off your head.
Some of the berries I photographed while sitting in my chair, down the row, then I picked them and put them in that same red bucket Leland had been using. He got a Nancy's Yogurt container out of the tote bag that I had bought last October in Pitlochry, Scotland, and used it so that I would have the bucket with a handle.
Here comes Rachel. It's time for us to pool our berries and head for the store to purchase them. One more errand to accomplish on the way back to my apartment, then the two of them would head to some friends to grill. It was a splendid outing! I'm very happy they asked me to go along, especially since there is the very real possibility that by next Saturday I could be back at square one with my being able to walk very far at the time, if I have that surgery on Thursday. Plus, the weather is predicted to be very hot this week and beyond. One more reason to hope that I don't have cancer and that I therefore don't need that surgery--I'll be in the A/C at work this week when it's 80 to 90 degrees, and the week after when it starts out at 98 degrees on Monday and Tuesday. No matter what, I shall endure, even the predicted 97 next Saturday and the 103 a week from today. I have plenty of fans, lots of windows, and easily hung ways to keep the sunshine out.
