Today was an experience I’ll continue to dream about. We drove up and up and up into Heath to pick blueberries at the Benson Place. Acres of wild, low bush blueberries on land that has been with the Bensen family since 1815 when Squire and Hannah Benson raised thirteen of their seventeen children there. We were led out to the field by a young, well educated, drawn back to his roots Bensen who taught us how to use the metal apparatus that scoops the blueberries off the bushes. After a while we even got pretty good at it! See me with my CBS News hat….CBS stood for “Conway Blueberry Society” today.
The altitude and the views are actually indescribable. I’ve sent a few photos, but they don’t capture the magic of the place.
After a mile on a nature trail walk, we headed back to the conveyor belt where our blueberries were waiting for us and where visions of Ethyl and Lucy (and the candy episode) lured us on. Oh! It was so much fun! I was elected to take the chair at the end of the belt and I had SO much fun manipulating the berries into the appropriate pint boxes, not by hand, but by juggling a strange wooden thing There was a handy Stop Switch that I could push when things got too frantic! It ended up that we had picked over 90 pints of fresh, wild blueberries at $2.39 pint. We ALL had blue teeth and blue lips and ate blueberries all day long!! Its expected behavior at this low key, generous, life as it should be, amazing place. We ended our perfect day with bag lunches at the picnic/chess table by the pollinator gardens.
Be sure to eat some blueberries! They’re in season!! Lots of love, Penny
The altitude and the views are actually indescribable. I’ve sent a few photos, but they don’t capture the magic of the place.
After a mile on a nature trail walk, we headed back to the conveyor belt where our blueberries were waiting for us and where visions of Ethyl and Lucy (and the candy episode) lured us on. Oh! It was so much fun! I was elected to take the chair at the end of the belt and I had SO much fun manipulating the berries into the appropriate pint boxes, not by hand, but by juggling a strange wooden thing There was a handy Stop Switch that I could push when things got too frantic! It ended up that we had picked over 90 pints of fresh, wild blueberries at $2.39 pint. We ALL had blue teeth and blue lips and ate blueberries all day long!! Its expected behavior at this low key, generous, life as it should be, amazing place. We ended our perfect day with bag lunches at the picnic/chess table by the pollinator gardens.
Be sure to eat some blueberries! They’re in season!! Lots of love, Penny
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