Well folks, I am proud to share the achievement of a homesteading dream. Blueberry independence has been achieved. What this means is that we produced enough blueberries on our own land to freeze for the year’s supply. To really understand the significance of this, you have to know that we eat A LOT of blueberries. Every July involves several U-pick trips, many frozen quart bags and a significant chunk of change thrown down in support of local farms. We eat blueberries in our pancakes. We eat blueberries in our various baked goods. We eat blueberries in our salads. We even eat frozen blueberries plain, just as they are, by the handful. We REALLY love our blueberries.
Our homestead came complete with a row of mature blueberry bushes, which was part of why we fell in love with it. Visions of blueberries danced in our heads, but we still ended up visiting the U-pick farm last year. With the move in late spring, we weren’t able to do much to take care of them, and although we were able to pick a few bowls full for daily munching, the chipmunks and birds ate most of the fruit much to our dismay and disappointment. So, we got cats. We mulched around the bushes. We spent a few days over the winter pruning. We fed them with the special blueberry fertilizer from Down to Earth. We kept them weeded and watered, and we watched and waited.
Even when we started picking a few fresh bowls to set out on the counter, I still had it in my head we would be needing a trip to the U-pick farm to stock up for the year. I really wasn’t expecting to get enough harvest off our own bushes to make up our full supply.
Then, our friends came to visit for the 4th of July weekend, and we decided to spend the evening picking some berries, because it was starting to look like we had a lot of ripe fruit out there.
I’ll be darned if we didn’t put up 8+ gallons in the freezer in about an hour, and we had hardly put a dent in them. It was then that I realized, we had achieved blueberry independence.
Foraging, wildcrafting, and U-picking to stock up for the year has always given me a good, independent feeling. I like knowing I have been responsible for my food, and I like supporting local farmers. The feeling that comes along with growing AND harvesting one’s own supply of food, however, is much more profound. Although we grow and forage a large amount of our own food, the only thing I can really say I have had full responsibility for a whole year’s supply is my garlic, and while important, that is more of a supplemental food. Blueberries are substantial, and as I said, it takes a lot of blueberries to keep my family going for a year. Of all the things I have to be proud of in life, this goes way up there near the top of the list.
When we think about independence and freedom, the first association that comes to mind is often political. The independence we celebrate on the 4th of July is one that has been fought for, paid for with lives and allows us to have many freedoms in the United States that other people still do not have. Freedom is something I value highly, and am deeply grateful to possess. There is ongoing conflict and debate over how this freedom should be upheld and maintained, and different people hold different pictures of what independence looks like. To me, homesteading is an act of independence. Self sufficiency, to whatever degree we can achieve it, means that we are independently providing something for ourselves and are therefore no longer dependent on someone else for that thing. While I am not sure we can be entirely independent, or 100% self sufficient in our modern day and age, and there is still a great importance in interdependency and community, I do believe that these acts of self-sufficiency have a positive impact on our own lives and the world we live in.
My fellow blogger, Tonya, over at Plain and Joyful Living, posted this quote by Wendell Berry the other day that really resonated with my thoughts on why we engage in modern homesteading:
“To make public protests against an evil, and yet live
dependent on and in support of a way of life that is
the source of evil, is an obvious contradiction
and a dangerous one. If one disagrees with the
nomadism and violence of our society, then one is
under an obligation to take up some permanent
dwelling place and cultivate the possibility of peace
and harmlessness in it. If one deplores the destructiveness
and wastefulness of the economy, then one
is under an obligation to live as far out on the
margin of the economy as one is able: to be as
economically independent of exploitative industries,
to learn to need less, to waste less, to make things
last, to give up meaningless luxuries, to understand
and resist the language of salesmen and public
relations experts, to see through attractive packages,
to refuse to purchase fashion or glamour or prestige.
If one feels endangered by meaningless, then one
is under an obligation to refuse meaningless pleasures
and to resist meaningless work, and to give up
the moral comfort and the excuses of the mentality
of specialization.”
– Wendell Berry
Blueberry independence may seem like a small step, but to me it is a large milestone.
Those blueberries look delicious. Well done on producing such a crop. We don't have blueberry bushes yet (we have raspberry and red and black current) so rely on picking wild ones.
Very interesting post I like your thoughts on independence and that quote is just great.
Enjoy your fruit – we are making raspberry and rhubarb pie with our little bit of 'independence' today.
Bonne Appetit!
Raspberries and currants are wonderful fruits and raspberry rhubarb pie is delicious! Glad to hear you are enjoying the fruits of your labors!