Blueberries for Sal

Have you ever read “Blueberries for Sal”? This was one of my favorite children’s books growing up. I remember sitting on my Grandma’s orange striped couch reading about Sal and her mom picking blueberries. I could hear the “plink plink” of the blueberries dropping into Sal’s metal bucket. And I’d imagine helping her gobble them up until her bucket was empty. I don’t think Sal took any blueberries home with her even after a full day on the blueberry hill.

Last summer I discovered blueberries. I had no idea there were actual blueberry bushes. The closest we got to a blueberry bush back home was the few packages of blueberries at Albertson’s selling for what seemed like a dollar per berry.

We have some friends who live right next to a blueberry farm and have a few rows of bushes right in their backyard. I must have visited our Michigan berry bushes a dozen times last summer. Dragging little Noah with me and picking until he was too hot to find another berry. We made blueberry jam, blueberry pie, blueberry waffles. We ate blueberries on our granola, our oatmeal, our ice cream. Anything.

Well, this summer I haven’t been able to stop thinking about our blueberries. Anticipating the last weeks in July when we could go pick. We didn’t go as crazy as we did last year, I think we’ve been lulled by the packages of blueberries at Meijer selling for only a dollar fifty. But pick we did! We dragged little Noah and baby Gage with us and picked until we were too hot to find another berry. And I don’t think Noah’s bucket had any blueberries left when we walked away.