Artist's dates

Picking Blueberries: An Artist's Date

May 04, 2015

A few minutes from my house, and just down the road from where I keep Tank, there is a blueberry farm that is now open for U-picking. After several weeks of unseasonably hot and humid weather, this weekend was fresh and spring like—the sun shining from a cobalt sky dotted with cottony clouds, so I decided to go blueberry picking for the first time. Here’s what happened:

Acres of blueberry bushes

After I park my car, the farm proprietor ties a white plastic bucket around my waist and tells me which sections were picked for market and which should have berries left. I walk down the grassy road between berry sections and choose my spot. There are other pickers scattered through the rows, a few with children in tow. U-picking with kids is popular, and this is one of the first weekends the farm is open. I see several generations of family members, from grandparents to toddlers, enjoying the experience.

And that’s why I’m here: to enjoy the experience. This is an artist’s date as well as a way to stock my freezer with fresh blueberries.

Once I choose my section, I begin slowly walking between the rows of shoulder- to head-high blueberry bushes. It takes me a few moments for my eyes to adjust to seeing the plump purple berries hidden in the foliage. I drop my first berries in my bucket with a thunk. While I search with my eyes, my ears listen to the sounds around me: the breeze flirting with berry bushes, the lady in the red t-shirt humming along with her iPod, the children calling out excitedly, and even the loud speakers periodically blaring screechy bird sounds to keep away other birds who would eat the berries. My mind is free to wander, but I find it mostly stays quiet, absorbed in the task of looking carefully for the ripe berries. I deliberately pick a few unripe berries to paint because they’re such pretty colors. I also remember and use Laure Ferlita’s advice to look up, look down, look all around.



As in life, in blueberry picking, it pays to go slowly, look carefully, and be gentle (so the fruit doesn’t fall on the ground instead of into your fingers). You need to look at the bushes from several different angles, and sometimes you will find perfect berries missed by others who have worked the same row. This is sort of like the process of creativity—good ideas, ripe for the picking are out there, waiting for the right person to come along.

It takes me about two hours to fill my bucket. I probably could have moved to a section with more berries per bush, but for once I’m not in a hurry. It is a pleasure to be doing one thing and one thing only. Once my bucket is full, I return to the entrance, pay my money, and carry a plastic grocery bag to my car filled with my bounty.


When I get home, I’ll have the work of drying out the berries (they don’t like to be wet), freezing them, and deciding what I want to do with the ones I won’t freeze. Blueberry muffins for my son, and lemon blueberry scones for me, I think.

This artist’s date was a huge success. I not only deeply enjoyed it while it was happening, but I also wrote about it in my journal and in this post, and I painted those berries! So far, I’ve only experimented with different colors for the berries, but I also want to do a full watercolor sketch page of various elements from the day.

What did you do this weekend?

Delight

It's the Little Things

March 09, 2015


I hope you had as pleasant a weekend as I did. My mother-in-law came for an overnight visit, which gave me an excuse to drop my usual routine and go with the flow. I don’t know about you, but I too often become slave to my schedule and to-do list (out of fear that I’ll slack off and get too far behind to catch up!) instead of staying in the moment and doing what feels right. This weekend, I relaxed more, spent time talking with Mom and followed my instincts regarding the things I did.  Despite “losing” an hour to Daylight Saving Time, I ended up having the most delight-ful weekend, as well as accomplishing the following:

Ate at a new local restaurant we’ve been meaning to try for breakfast Sunday.

Repotted plants. A few of my orchids needed attention, and I had a new rosemary plant to take out of its peat pot as well as some tiny basil seedlings that needed transplanting.

Trimmed catnip leaves to dry for Prudy (and a few of my friends who also have catnip-loving cats).



Cleaned and refilled the birdbath.

Refilled the squirrel bird feeder outside my office window.

Bathed Scout and washed her dog bed.

Took Prudy on a supervised wander in the back yard.



Picked some volunteer Florida Everglades tomatoes (and ate them).

Watched an episode of The Gilmore Girls from a library DVD while I planned my week.

Sorted through some old magazines, keeping the few pages I wanted and letting the rest go.

So often it’s the little things, the simple pleasures, that add up to happy days—both now and in the future. Even though I did only what I felt like doing, I still got many things done. And I’ll enjoy the results, when my orchids bloom, when we eat the fresh herbs, and when I watch the squirrels birds on the feeder.

What did you do this weekend?

Family

This and That

September 24, 2012

It’s fall! Can you tell? Our weather still says summer, but that didn't stop us from a this-and-that weekend, here at the Johnson household. My husband and I puttered about the house and yard, together and apart—a relaxing and satisfying way to spend Saturday and Sunday.


Some of the things we did:

I began putting out fall decorations, with this little set of votive candles I just bought. Everything else is in the attic…time to send someone up there to bring the boxes down.


We cleaned our potting bench. My husband has taken up vegetable gardening, so we now share the bench which I had let get into quite a state:



Better:


I cleaned and refilled the bird bath and squirrel bird feeders:

Ick
Much better
Come and get it!

I found a little friend keeping the orchids bug free:



Scout enjoyed the warmth of the sun:


We admired growing things:

Baby basils
Dendrobium Salaya Candy

There was also a little laundry, a little horse time, a little online puttering (Pinterest, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Blacksburg Belle and more), a little vacuuming, some sports on TV and, of course, some reading.

I'm at my happiest when I'm savoring these little moments, small accomplishments and simple pleasures. I’m grateful I had the time to slow down and enjoy them.

What did you do this weekend?

Everyday adventures

Wonderful Weekend

October 24, 2011

It all started Friday. I went for a ride on Tank, because we finally got a REAL cold front that dropped our temperatures into the—oh joy!—70s. (I’d skipped my normal Wednesday ride because the heat and humidity were so bad I was extremely cranky, and cranky rider often = cranky horse…something I don’t think any of us wants to see.) Tank and I had a lovely ride, and practiced longer stretches of trotting to build muscle (for both of us) without winding up in a puddle of sweat.

When I got home, I opened all the windows in the house and sat outside on the lanai to read for a bit before dinner.

Saturday, I started the day with three of the loveliest words in the English language: library book sale. So far as I know, this was the first one my local branch has hosted, and though I tried not to get my hopes too high, I was eager to see what they’d have. Danielle at A Work in Progress often has wonderful luck at her library book sales, and I hoped maybe it would rub off on me. The sale was fairly small, and I came home with only three books: Stephen King’s Duma Key (to replace our missing copy—a truly amazing, though creepy, story); Perfectly Imperfect, by Lee Woodruff, a collection of essays about being a wife, mother, daughter and friend; and Sarah’s Key (Tatiana de Rosnay), a book I've had on my TBR list for a while. The lady who checked me out exclaimed, “Oh, this is such a good book,” when she saw it, so I feel that’s a good omen.

Later that day, my husband and I joined another couple for a trip to a little town nearby to browse antiques stores. No one found any treasures to take home, but we enjoyed the beautiful day, and the poking around through others’ interesting and unusual possessions.

We also stopped here:


Friends of ours own this candy store, so we bought an assortment of chocolate to (ahem) support their fledgling business.


And Sunday? Well, Sunday was the best of all. My son and husband went mountain biking, leaving me home alone for most of the day. I filled the hours, which went by like minutes, with reading (the Sunday paper and The Winter Sea), puttering (cleaned off my kitchen desk and the drawers and cabinet surrounding it while watching Eat Pray Love on dvd) and simply chilling out and enjoying the solitude. I also watched one of Laure Ferlita’s class videos, and fooled around trying to figure out what to sketch for the assignment.

My weekend was the perfect blend of activity and relaxation, solitude and togetherness. I especially loved doing something fun with my husband, instead of doing errands or household projects. I hope future weekends will be just as wonderful.

How was your weekend?

All this fun is just exhausting...