Enchanted Blueberry Forests

Last week my sister Anna sent a text asking what I was doing early Friday Morning.  I like to help/hang/laugh with her on her many merchandising adventures, so I responded "Working with you?".  She mentioned we'd have to get out the door by 6am - and did it up right - made to die for crab cakes for dinner to thank me in advance, promised to wake me with coffee; all that awesome stuff that sisters do when they are helping each other out. 

Here is what I know - if I'm going to spend time with Anna, it's going to be fun, no matter what we are up to (well, funerals not so much, but we are working on some rituals to help with that too - stay tuned) so I was in.  I am a pretty flexible girl and knew that if I was able to be back to put in a few hours of accounting, it would be worth the time - that's just how we roll.

She even filled my girnourmous water jug for me - thought hmmmm - wonder what I've gotten myself into for a fleeting second, but then just enjoyed the journey.  We neared a clinic that while we sat at the stop light advertised every single kind of therapy known to mankind - and a few additional for martians too, I think. We joked about stopping on the way home and see what kind of a family discount program they offered.  I asked if this was finally the part where she took me out to the  middle of the woods and well, you know....because we were going further and further out of town where only cows, a few farmers and some pine trees live. I was getting curiouser and curiouser....when we turned onto this gorgeous twisty turny, curvy road and pulled into what looked like a bit of a starter camp for some sort of gorgeous bush/tree with these pink, purple and blue berries just dripping off the branches.

I had been SUPER DUPED..  I had been kidnapped and taken to the Enchanted Blueberry Forest - a place that up until that moment had been a legend.  Can you say charmed life anyone?  THIS is where I get kidnapped to?  Wow. I will admit to you, gentle reader, I teared up as I got out of the car and leaped into the field of this magical trees bearing such beautiful fruits I fully expected tinkerbell to jump out and surprise me any second by sprinkling me with pixie dust so I could float and pick berries.  I also must admit I thought about dancing down the aisles, but I digress.

Next thing I know, I'm handed these fabulous buckets in beautiful, bright, happy colors and sent forth.  I'm giggling a lot like a 4 year old in a candy store at this point as floods of memories come rushing over me of time spent hiking to, picking, and consuming berries in my glorious childhood with my sister Kate and my pal Bill Richards - I swear I can hear them giggling with me with the pure delight that comes with happening upon something so amazingly delicious and such proof of how much the Divine loves us.  I'm grinning my way down rows, cutting over to others tasting, just tasting the pancakes of breakfasts past both filled with the fruits of our adventures, but smothered in their syrup.....

There is more to the story, like the not so scary at all guard cat that decided we were allowed to remain on her land, and the adventures at a neighboring farm, but I love to just revisit the joy this morning gave me.  How sisters just know what feels so great after a few weeks of really hard work - just how to celebrate life at 6 in the morning.  

Thank you, Anna Banana for the magical adventure..... it was delightfully perfect.