Country Living. For Real This Time.

Today I picked blueberries! And saw an Amish woman driving a horse drawn cart down the road!  But several other things happened as well!  Too many exclamation points!  Ahhhhh!!

Right.  Anyway. So yesterday after Mary finished teaching her class (which went well, btw) we came back to the house to start making dinner.  One of Mary's friends from college and his girlfriend were coming over for dinner that night.  Thursday night at Matt & Mary's house is homemade pizza night. (I now think that everyone should implement this tradition).  Mary's got this delicious pizza crust recipe which is straight from the vaults of Betty Crocker!  We made, well, Mary made some pretty awesome pizza.  I made guacamole.  Sorta.  I smushed avocados & chopped tomatoes, but didn't taste them because I am allergic to avocados! (I know.  It sucks.)  But the pizza.  Oh the pizza.  You haven't had pizza until you've had properly made homemade pizza.  My friends & I have tried to make homemade pizza, but if you don't make the dough from scratch, then you're short changing yourself!  Pizza #1 was fresh tomatoes, pesto, and mozzarella, and pizza #2 was prosciutto, tomato sauce, and mozzarella.  And both were delicious.  Delicious, I tell you!

Dinner was a very exciting event.  The friend from college & his girlfriend were both very pleasant.  He's in seminary and she's from Canada.  (Don't we pick the weirdest single traits to describe people?)  And they all freaked me out telling me stories about crossing the border from America to Canada and vice versa.  I tell you this because I'm driving through Canada tomorrow.  Wish me luck.  I have nothing to hide!   But back to dinner.  (Sorry, I'm very easily sidetracked tonight!)  After dinner, we played Yahtzee, which I'm no good at. But I got a Yahtzee.  & then Mary showed her friend how to work his new fangled camera.  We then took what he called a "streaky light photo".  It was actually kinda awesome.

But anyway, today was full of things I've never done.  This morning we polished off the last of the scones (don't worry, we made more), and Mary helped me do my laundry.  I got to play guitar this morning (Mary even let me sing a little) which was awesome because I really miss playing my guitar.  Then after we got ready for the day it was off to pick blueberries.  I've never done that before!  So we drove out further into the country, got briefly lost, and ended up at this little patch of land where you can pick your own blueberries from their many many blueberry bushes.  So we go to the little house on the land and grab empty milk jugs and used a rope to tie them around our waists. It's brilliant.  Then you walk into the bushes and glean as many blueberries as you can.  Its oddly addicting!  You get all determined to pick blueberries any time you see a decent clump of them.

driving fast on country roads is fun

i suppose you'd call this their store front

blueberry bushes

mary's ready to pick

cousins

Mary has done this several times and she's quite good at it.  She's a bit of a perfectionist so there were no little twigs or leaves in her milk jug of blueberries like there was in mine, but between the two of us we picked about 8 pounds of blueberries.  8 whole pounds!  And the best part about it was that since we'd picked 'em, they were only $0.75/lb.  Score!  Blueberries galore.

fruits of my labor

After the blueberry picking extravaganza, Mary went on a run.  (Where does she come up with this energy?)  And I re packed my bags.  Since the New York/Boston/Hurricane episode, my bags have been packed and stuffed and repacked and confused, so I figured that now was as good a time as any to sort things out.  So I got all my clean clothes and refolded and repositioned and just redid all my packing so that it fits neatly into the bags I've brought (and one or two plastic bags....).  As I was doing this, I noticed that I packed a lot of odd stuff.  Why do I have 4 dresses with me?  I don't EVER wear dresses!  Why would I possibly need them on the road?  Maybe 1.  But 4???  Those got packed at the bottom of a suitcase I now intend to leave in my car for the next 4 weeks.

Anyway, with me all packed & Mary back from her run, we started to make dinner. Mary (I helped a little) made portobello mushroom sandwiches with pesto, mozzarella, and onions (also delicious) and we packed them up and headed to Houghton to watch a field hockey game.  If you've never watched field hockey then you're missing out on a few things.  This was my first time, so here's my experience.  Field hockey is exactly what it sounds like: hockey on a field.  So it's like broomball, but with out the ice, and with WAY more rules. People were getting fouled right and left, and I couldn't for the life of me tell why.  So basically, it just looks like angry croquet.  So that's what I've dubbed it.  Field hockey = angry croquet.

very angry croquet

Back at the house Mary & I embarked on the task of cleaning the 8 pounds of blueberries.  As I sorted through the twigs and stems of my blueberries (which were conspicuously absent from Mary's blueberries), I cursed my lack of thoroughness.  Mary then made scones.  And again, they were awesome.  So tonight saw us make scones, Matt made us a "juice drink" (that's it's official name. It's seltzer, juice, & lemon. Tasty!), and we watched TV.  I think I might be able to get used to this life in the country thing.  I don't know though.  Today whilst picking blueberries and driving past barns and Amish horse drawn carriages I started to realize just how much of a city girl I really am.  And I think I don't mind that.  Who knows, though!?

the spoils

But my stay in the country has been extremely pleasant.  It's very very peaceful out here.  Green everywhere. Maybe I could get used to it.  Tomorrow it's off to Michigan to go camping.  In a week I'll have gone from Big City, to Country, to Camping and it's brilliant.  I'll be sad to leave this vacation behind.  But 3 1/2 more weeks! & I intend to enjoy every minute of it.