summer bites

Last night Eva and I took Jack for a walk in the rain. We've been taking him every night lately and he was all jazzed up for a walk, even as I had completely forgotten. I was glad we decided to take him, though, because it gave me an opportunity to watch Eva and myself in the rain together picking up earthworms and slugs every few houses and moving them to safety on the grass or off the pavement... {This was meant to be an entire blog post but I can't seem to catch the feeling of last night, so taken with the current berry goodness that has washed over me and my kitchen currently. Suffice it to say that Eva and I tread lightly and think deeply about the other creatures out on damp nights like these. I leave you with that image as I move along to berry love.}

We've been to the upick three times this week. Once to pick strawberries, when I came back with the first raspberries of the season. The second time to pick raspberries, when I came back with the first sylvan blackberries of the season (and Tayberries!). The third time, today, to pick raspberries. And I came back with the most glorious flat of raspberries that I can remember ever having picked. These are the sort of raspberries that drip off the vine when I hold my hand under a few of them and they are so large I can fit at least three chocolate chips inside of one raspberry (I'd forgotten that raspberries are *made* perfectly for fitting chocolate chips inside).

One thing that I love about the upick is that sometimes- if you stay open to it- you can come away with abundance in unexpected forms. And sometimes, you can come away with abundance in exactly how you had hoped. And sometimes, you can come away with something far better than you had imagined. Any way you look at it, it's a pretty good deal to stand in the middle of rows of berries, listening to the hawks calling. But I wax poetical about the upick fairly often and am in sheer heaven this time of year with the abundance and variety of it all.



Inspired by the amazing raspberries I was presented with today and a camping trip we are heading out to tomorrow with friends, I made the cutest little raspberry hand pies you have ever seen. It has become a bit of a Fourth of July tradition for me at this point. Check them out-



These were inspired by Martha Stewart's Strawberry Hand Pies. I used a little less sugar and whole spelt flour. I also used a very small circle to make these hand pies around 2 1/2 inches across the back. I also made a few slightly bigger ones for variety and different tastes. Some like a small bite, some a larger, after all.

And then last, but certainly not least, the kids and I finished the first Harry Potter. They are, as I type, watching the first movie as well. I hope to catch it in the next couple of days when one of them is bound to want to re-watch it. Samuel has also been playing the new Lego Harry Potter for the Wii, so we have full immersion going on for sure. (I wanted to add that Samuel has taken to carrying around his magic wand a good part of the time as well.)