Return to Reed Valley

Summer brought another love back into our lives...blueberries, baby, blueberries. Reed Valley Orchard in Paris, Kentucky, just gets better and better every year. And all of the rain we endured over the past couple of months has yielded a fantastic crop of blueberries, red raspberries, and black raspberries. Let the picking begin!


We know that all parents think their children are very bright bright or excel at one particular activity. Well we are pretty darned impressed with Callie's fine motor skills, and on this day she did not disappoint. She picked gently and precisely, showing an instinctive knack for only the bluest of blueberries. Not all of those precisely picked berries made it to the bucket, however, for Callie was always ready to taste the fruits of her labor.


Despite her ravenous blueberry consumption, we still managed to bring in a full gallon over a short period of time. It was hot, though, so we needed to sit down and perhaps eat a few before we moved on to the next crop.





The red raspberries were a bit more challenging, we're not going to lie. The bushes have thorns, the berries are a bit more delicate, and you have to adapt to a new color for ripeness. And this means that the final picking of the day, the black raspberries, were really tough. Now if the berries were red you didn't want to pick them. Not the easiest thing to explain to someone 20 months old, no matter how fine their motor skills.


Nevertheless, Callie would not be stopped. She loved to walk through the rows of bushes, pointing and sniffing. We can't wait for our next visit to Reed Valley. They are good people, and we learned on this past trip that they converted their livelihood from tobacco to orchard fruits nearly two decades ago because of the onset of throat cancer within the family. They felt they couldn't be involved in the tobacco industry anymore. Somehow stories like this just makes the fruit taste even better.


Visits to Reed Valley have a way of producing sweetness throughout the week that follows. It always includes one if not two days of fresh blueberry pancakes, which we all seem to love. In this particular picture, Callie and Sarah decided to make blueberry pancakes for Father's Day. It doesn't get much better than that.

Okay, so we are caught up for now. Unfortunately, through the camera debacle, we were unable to capture a true milestone moment for Callie. But it may be for the best since there is some difference of opinion in the Bowes household over what might be fit for blog publication. The fact is, Callie pooped in the pottie!!! That's right, our little girl tugged at her diaper and pulled us to the bathroom. Although we were slow to understand all of the signs, we finally figured it out, placed her on the pottie, gave her a book and a few minutes, and the rest is history. Even though we are not completely prepared to embrace this new activity, Callie continues to have the desire to use the potty about once a day. So we are certainly not out of diapers yet, but we can see that day approaching...we hope. Either way it is pretty exciting to us.

Hope you all are doing well. Tomorrow we are off to Connecticut for Alison Skonieczny's wedding and a few days on Block Island. Who knows what fun and adventure lies ahead.