4th of July - Georgia Country Style Blueberries, Peaches and Sunflowers

For the 4th we went berry picking with our friends Mike and Beth.

They had located a U-Pick'em blueberry farm about 30 mile east of Atlanta. We got up early to try and beat the heat and got to the place mid morning. What a wonderful berry farm. They had 20 rows, each about 100 yards long, of 20yr old plants, just bursting with berries. They supplied you with a gallon bucket, a length of rope to tie the bucket to your waist and let you go at it. The first thing we did was sample the various varieties to find the flavor and sweetness we liked. We settled on the Climax berry. It had lots of thumb-sized berries and was deliciously sweet. I took the high level, where there were lots of unpicked jumbo berries, while Denna worked below. In just a little while we had our buckets full. What a great start to the day!

On the way out to the berry farm we had seen some small signs for the Sunflower Fest, so afterwards we took off to see what that was all about. But before we got there we saw a sign for Peaches, so we made a detour to the Peach stand. There, they had boxes of fresh Georgia Peaches, just picked from their small orchard. We bought some, with thoughts of fresh peach cobbler in mind!

Then it was off to the Sunflower Fest. What a serendipitous find! There, about 10 miles back in the middle of central Georgia was a 10 acre patch of sunflowers with a festival going on under the trees beside the field. There had to have been a couple of thousand people there with vendors selling funnel cakes, barbecue, antiques, what-nots and bird feeders. They even had a small stage with a band playing some darn good country western songs. We had never heard of this festival, but what a nice little event it turned out to be.

There was a huge thunderstorm coming our way so we had to cut short our stay at the fest, but we did run out quickly to the sunflower field where for $10 you could cut a vase full of flowers to take home. Unfortunately it turned out I was in too big a hurry and while I got a lot of big sunflowers, they didn't work out too good once we got them home. Of course Mike, with his knowledge of flowers and artistic touch, cut the perfect bouquet of flowers. Boy did I catch it for that.

We then took off back to Mike and Beth's where they fixed a great summer feast of ribs, beans, cole slaw and sumptuous margaritas. Topped off with a fresh blueberry and peach cobbler!

We were too tired and full to take in the fireworks so Denna and I headed home and were safely in bed before the first fireworks went off! But I did tivo the Boston Pops 4th of July celebration, which we watched the next morning.

The next day, as we were sorting through our berries and peaches, telling Angela about them and the Sunflower Fest, we decided to make another run out to the fest, taking Angela this time. Also, we wanted to have more time to enjoy the flowers and to cut a better bunch of sunflowers. Unfortunately, we got out there just behind a huge thunderstorm that had shut the festival down. But the sun was coming back out and they were still letting you out into the field to cut sunflowers so we got out and cut some more. This bunch was a lot better!

Here's a link to ALL of the photos from the 4th!