Picking iPhones

Yesterday, Kateri (who just became my 3rd bridesmaid, hooray!) invited us to head over to her parent's place in Danville for an afternoon of blackberry-pickin' and hanging out. First of all, her parent's place isn't exactly in Danville (about 12 windy-road miles away) and second, it is on 115 acres of land. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN. It's gorgeous out there, all hilly and green, with tons of wildlife and room for vegetable gardens and wild blackberries and...wow.

We picked berries for a couple hours and ended up with 6 gallon-sized bags full of fresh blackberries. 5 of those bags are soon to become jam (yea!!!) and one bag came home with Chris and I. I've spent the entire morning drooling over recipes: blackberry pancakes, blackberry oatmeal, blackberry cake, blackberry smoothies...slurp!

It was awesome to get out there for the afternoon and spend the evening on the front porch, rocking on the rocking chair, watching the hummingbirds come up and feed, and enjoying the cool July evening.

The thing that impressed me most, though, was the delicious dinner that the Roessler family cooked up for us. We had a roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, squash, tomatoes with basil, cucumber salad (oh and the best benedictine spread I've ever had!), and blackberry wine...and everything came from their garden. Even the roast, which came from the cow they had owned (who Kateri's sister Christa had affectionately named "Steak" when they got him!). For dessert we sat out on the porch and ate big slices of sweet watermelon and spit the seeds into the yard.

I had a great time and am so happy Kateri and Karl invited us out there! Mrs. Roessler even sent us home with a bag full of more fresh veggies (cucumbers, tomatoes, squash!!) I am so excited!

I wish I had some pictures of the place, but unfortunately we left the camera in the car for this trip. Maybe we'll just have to come out again sometime and take photos!