Blueberries for Randy...and Tesla

Occasionally Randy has a brilliant idea. Unfortunately this one took three years to execute.

Way back, when we first joined the Oklahoma Food Co-op, Randy got excited about heading out to a berry farm and picking our own some morning. He was living on cherished memories of a Michigan boyhood where he and his brothers roamed freely along the rural roads, picking wild blackberries, raspberries and blueberries that grew along the property lines of neighboring farms.

"Did I ever tell you how good those blueberries were back in Michigan, honey?"
"Uhm. Yes."
"Do you want me to tell you again?"
"Uhm...No."

The story didn't improve with the telling and I had heard the story many times because we see a lot of blueberries around here. This is the land of Food Restrictions, but blueberries are one of the few foods Tesla can eat to her heart's content, so we pay a LOT for blueberries, year 'round. And I hear Randy's story year 'round.

My theory is that the blueberry memory was proof of all that was right about Randy's childhood--a childhood his daughter would never experience in suburbialand--making it also a kind of personal torture for Randy. For me, childhood was more about being awkward and lonely; it something to be endured before adulthood. I was the child of suburbia and my best summer memories were about chasing the ice cream truck on our bikes after a full day swimming at the country club. Sounds posh, but I always felt a sense of open emptiness in my unstructured summer days that lacked the adventurous spirit Randy and his brothers felt. These days, Bomb-Pops and the smell of chlorine don't captivate me as well as the smell of espresso. So Randy didn't impress me with his blueberry stories. I really didn't see what the big deal was.

But today I found out.

This morning we piled in the car, complete with a trunk sized cooler, and drove an hour and a half to a farm called "Blueberry Valley" to pick a few of the fabled "blueberries off the bush" and generally get our nature-lovin' groove on. As excited as Randy was, he was concerned the blueberries might be a disappointment. "They're not Michigan blueberries," he warned me. I wasn't worried: I was imagining not paying $6 a half-pint for organic blueberries in March--or forking over $3 for 10oz. of WalMart frozen berries. Oklahoma blueberries would do.

"Blueberry Valley" was indeed in the base of a valley. We drove past some spindly-looking blueberry bushes and down the red gravel and dirt road to the open shed in the driveway. Randy said he was worried; those didn't look as nice as Michigan bushes. "Well. It's Oklahoma, honey. What did you expect?" While Tesla and I used the restroom, Randy had a friendly chat with the owner and got a few buckets. Then we were off.

I wonder sometimes what explorers feel when they first encounter a rare bird, or come upon a grove of trees, heavy with fruit and calling to their empty stomachs. I am no naturalist, nor am I starving, but Randy might as well have been both.

"Look at these berries! Look at the size of them!" he said as Tesla trotted after him. He was right: they were huge and they were everywhere! Hurray! No more Walmart blueberries!!

We spent the next hour and a half picking and picking and picking. Lord, how we picked! Actually, Randy picked and ate, and picked and ate. (Here's the happy boy.)


Tesla even got into the game and stayed with it until near the end, when a butterfly caught her attention. Then she wanted to know where the chickens where: "Let's see the chickens!" (All farms must have chickens, of course.)


We quit sometime soon after that--our buckets were full and our necks were red. The haul, after all was bagged and weighed, was 22 pounds of sweet, organic, pop-in-you-mouth-goodness blueberries. Accustomed to buying little mingy boxes of berries for outragous prices, I nearly fell over when I saw gallon bags full of the stuff. I was worth the heat and the drive, and the three year wait so that Tesla could go with us. And the best part?
For $33, we got $132 worth of Tesla's favorite freezable fruit and a bit Randy's childhood back.

Yup. Now that's a deal.