Blueberry Picking is Great!

Blueberry Picking is Great!

Ah, blueberries. One of my favorite foods. And this is great blueberry picking time in my area. We are near Hammonton, NJ, which is known for its blueberries. We went picking at an organic farm last week and came home with almost eight pounds of berries. What will we do with so many, you might wonder. Well, I’ve already made two batches of blueberry muffins and plan to bake a blueberry cobbler later this week. We munch on them daily and I’ll freeze some, if any are left in the next day or so. We may go back to the picking farm before the harvest time is over.

Blueberries have lots going for them besides good taste. They are native to North America. They are healthful, loaded with antioxidants. They’re rated as reasonably low on the glycemic index and calories.

I love picking blueberries. Seeing how they grow and choosing which berries to take is a privilege. It is almost a meditative experience, directing your focus berry-by-berry, on the wonder of nature. There is a practical side as well. There is no worry about perhaps getting squished ones in the supermarket container or how long the berries have traveled or been stored before you buy them – there is nothing fresher than pick-your-own berries. Plus, it’s a fun outing for the family. Depending on the farm you go to, you may get to ride on a hay wagon, an activity that never gets old. And to top it all off, the cost is less.

So, I wish you all happy blueberry picking. Perhaps we’ll see each other down a blueberry row. But hurry, the season lasts only a few weeks more!

Yay for blueberries!

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=8

Hints about working with blueberries and more:

http://www.blueberrycouncil.org/about-blueberries/

Lake Erie is a Great Lake

Lake Erie is a Great Lake

Here it is July already. I took a blogcation for a month, enjoying a little road trip, a family visit, and just allowing myself some off time, doing pretty much not much. Isn’t that what summer is for?

One of the things I saw on our road trip was Lake Erie, an incredibly sized body of fresh water. There are five Great Lakes- Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, and Lake Huron – that impact Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Quebec, and Wisconsin. It was hard to believe that Lake Erie is the smallest of them in volume though the fourth in size. Quite impressive. Lots of people were enjoying the gentle waves and the warm water on this hot day; a serene respite from the usual hustle and bustle of everyday living.

But it wasn’t always this way. The Great Lakes have their problems. Lake Erie is a case in point. The native peoples revered the lake for its purity before the area was colonized. Then things changed with the new settlers. By the late 1960s it was polluted by industries spilling pollutants into it, sewer water being released there, and agricultural runoff. Algae flourished and the fish were all dying. Instead of Great Lake it was called Dead Lake. In 1969 the Cuyahoga River, which feeds into Lake Erie, caught fire. It was time to rethink our use of the lake.

In 1972, the United States and Canada signed The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement to establish guidelines for a cleaner Great Lakes environment. The International Joint Commission (IJC), in a final report in 1999 on the Great Lakes, recommended wetlands restoration and water quality research and monitoring. There are still periodic quality warnings issued for beach use but at least Lake Erie has its watchdogs now.

I was saddened when I learned about Lake Erie’s history. I wish I could have seen it in its original state; if it is so impressive now, how incredible it must have once been. We need to think of consequences to nature before we plow ahead with our plans. We aren’t separate from nature – it is us.

Lake Erie – past, present, and future:

http://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/_documents/publications/FS/FS-046%20Lake%20Erie%20water%20quality%20past%20present%20future.pdf

A look at the International Joint Commission’s findings:

http://www.ijc.org/php/publications/html/finalreport.html