Blueberry Heaven.

Here's the thing. I love Blueberries... A LOT. In college my roommates used to make fun of me for paying full price for fresh strawberries and blueberries year round (in OHIO). That's right, I might not have been able to afford a movie one weekend, but by golly I was gonna get my fresh fruit. I'd eat them in my cereal, my salads, in my juice, and of course just straight out of the container. You could find me eating them just about everywhere.

So you can only imagine my excitement when the husband & his parents took me to their Uncle Willy's blueberry farm to enable my obsession. And if you can't imagine it... Here's a photo for proof of my excitement:

Seriously, I was in heaven. Uncle Willy's farm is for sure no small operation. He has over 600 acres full of 25 different types blueberries. It was quite the sight!

So here's the back story to how I can go and purchase these delicious little berries full of goodness in the store and continue with living a slightly obsessed life.

Once the blueberries are good and ready, they're picked from the field. Either by hand...

or by this machine:

Then they're put into the red carts seen up on the blue machine and placed in the cooler at the warehouse:

After they're cooled, they go into this here fancy machine. Now, let me tell you about this machine - it's amazing. This is the first of it's kind in the US. It costs a huge chunk of cash and has a fancy laser in it that picks out which of the berries are bad.

The good ones are "sucked" up and pushed through, but the ones that aren't quite ready for eating are filtered out to and sent off for pie fillings, jams, juice, etc.

Then the good ones are sorted into their containers, labeled and sent off for shipping!

And those are the little boxes of goodness that I buy at the store.

Seriously we had such a great time! My favorite part was when Uncle Willy took us out into the fields and showed us the different types of berries - probably because he let me shove my face full of them as we went along. :)

But seriously, did you know there were different types of blueberries? I found out that my favorite are Blue Ridge and Legacy. Blue Ridge are super tart and the Legacy ones are a good mixture of sweet and a little bit of tang. YUM. I'm pretty sure there will be a huge blueberry field in my backyard in heaven...

MUCH thanks to Uncle Willy for such a great time!!! He has taken his spot as my fav. uncle on my pil's (pa-in-law's) side.

Oh, also I should also probably say thank you for letting me eat all of your blueberries. Seriously, I don't think there are any left on all 600 acres after the Salmons got through traipsing through them. Ooopsies. Sorry about that.

Much love - B