Blackberry picking!

Remember when I was all excited to go pick strawberries? Well, that never happened. Things came up, I forgot, and I completely missed strawberry season.

But a few weekends ago we took a lovely trip up to Dale Hollow Lake in middle Tennessee. A friend of ours has a family cabin up there, and he offers it to us every year. Lucky us! And there just happens to be a pick-your-own berry farm just a few miles up the road. I think I was more excited about picking berries than going swimming in the lake (but don't tell my husband - he's a water baby, he is).

Of course, I made a fool of myself, being the city girl that I am and having no idea about seasons and such. I proudly exclaimed to the farmer that we were there to pick raspberries, since that's what was out on the sign. He smugly informed me that we had missed raspberry season by a few weeks. But before I could get upset about missing yet another berry season, he told us that the blackberries were in full swing. So blackberries it was!

{there is my husband in the foreground...look how dilligently he's picking those things!}

When we got back home, I made a huge batch of this jam. I love knowing that I have a freezer full of homemade jam made from berries that we picked ourselves. That probably makes me weird, but I don't care.