Guerilla Berry Hunt

Today I took the dog on a long walk through the neighborhood and into a little nature reserve to pick blackberries. They are everywhere out here (invasive) and no one picks them. We made out with 5 cups. I am going out for a second trip later today to make off with 3 more cups. Then I can make some blackberry jam. Hopefully I'll be able to can tomorrow. If not, Saturday expect some pictures of the good stuff!

The first time I went out I was really embarrassed and I thought everyone was looking at me. I was so ashamed I came back with only ten or so berries. My principal told me she had canned 17 jars of the stuff and that it is a hobby of her family's to drive around and pull over whenever they see them to pick and freeze. This made me bold today and I channeled my great-grandma that my mom said would walk around picking dandelion leaves (arugula) to eat with dinner. Suburban foraging is a lot of fun. I might bring a jar of the stuff to the hermit cat lady at the end of the street. I picked a lot of her berries.

Krazy-Eyez Killah, aka Ulysses

Look at this guy. He seems so innocent, so nice, like the kind of guy you'd want to play fetch with. Yet he holds a dark secret- he EATS SQUIRRELS! Well, he tries to eat squirrels. Today was a close call- he actually got his mouth on one. I was screaming and threw everything in my hands down and ran around like a mad woman. I saw the squirrel jump and make a beep sound at which point I ran in the house and woke up Justin. When we went back out there was no blood, no dead squirrel and a really worn out dog. Still it was close.

Be warned...

Freedom!!!

These are a few more pictures of Ulysses at Lake Cushman- took me forever to post!

So we backed out of the 'Dream House 2' and that feels great! It's a really nice home and if we were going to buy one, that would definitely meet the criteria. However, Justin and I decided we want to save up some money beforehand. We would like to have 20% (J says so no PMI) but we'll see if we can get there in a year.
Upstate New York is calling our names, well it always is in the plan but we never do it. I think this savings will keep up going through with the plan of a real mini-farm outside of Rochester. I'm excited and I'm not going to look at one more house this year!