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Do you weigh us before and afterwards?
When I chose the University of Notre Dame for a place to pursue graduate work in mathematics, I had no idea that the location was also beneficial from an eating perspective. Several times, we drove north into Michigan and picked some of the fruits that are grown there (cherries, peaches, and more). After being in the South Bend, IN area for several years, we learned of something better.
It turns out that a bit east of South Bend tends to be a good place to grow blueberry bushes. The friends who told us about a specific picking spot also advised that we go early in the day, both to avoid the heat but also to get a jump-start on breakfast while in the field.
Don't these look good!
The year was likely 1988, the last year we were there during picking time. We showed up at the opening time (7:30?) with five-gallon pails for Marcia and me and an ice-cream pails for Tim (9) and Carrie (5). Before we went out into the field to pick, I wanted to be forthright about eating in the field. So I asked, “Do you weigh us before and afterwards?” He laughed and encouraged us to eat what we wanted.
When we got to our assigned picking location, I was amazed at the size of the blueberry bushes. In height, they were taller than me, and the girth was much greater than if Marcia and I tried to hold our hands around the bush. This was shocking since all my life I had been used to individual plants that were 6-18 inches tall and at most a foot in diameter. We always stooped over to pick when we picked wild blueberries, but here we could stand much of the time.
Since we all heard the words from the person who checked us in, we all ate as much as we wanted, but we also worked on collecting berries. I don't recall how long we picked, but I think it was about an hour. When we were done, together we had picked 8 gallons after only working on one and a half bushes. This was incredible since if we were picking wild blueberry bushes, the four of us would have been happy with half a gallon. We ended up finding lots of ways to eat these tasty and fresh blueberries, and also froze some. For someone who, at age 6 (or so), traded having birthday cakes for birthday blueberry (or juneberry) pies, this event was finding a treasure trove.
For another blueberry-related story, check out this one.
Published 2021-06-04. Revised 2025-08-12.
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