Birsday!

Ken made me coffee in bed for my birthday and I woke up to him sitting next to me with my dream present -- a beautiful shiny new pressure canner. I can't wait to can spaghetti sauce, chicken stock, salsa.... it will be awesome. I think it is definitely safe to say I will use it. As will Ken as he sterilizes his beer bottles for brewing. The gift that keeps on giving.

After work, I met ken downtown and we drove the 10 miles to Sauvie Island for a little blueberry and raspberry picking. The blueberries weren't quite ripe so it took us a lot longer to pick them. you had to find them and pick them off one by one rather than a whole bunch of ripe berries falling into your hand at a time. We'll have to go back for sure, maybe in another 2 weeks or so. Ken got a little disgruntled in it taking so long and was ready to leave but I convinced him to walk up the long hill to the raspberry patch. We passed the blackberries that weren't ripe at all yet and thought they were raspberries for a bit, then we realized they really were at the top of the small, but long hill.

And there they were, the biggest most beautiful raspberries I've ever seen. Bigger than my thumb. Virgin pure. All were sweet and ripe without a single person having gone through the fields yet. There was a couple in the next row, but that was it. Not a single berry was missing from the row we picked. it was heaven. We picked for 15 minutes and got as many berries as it took us in the 45 picking blueberries. It was now 7:15 and we had 8:00 dinner reservations and the farm was theoretically closed. We carried our 10 pounds of berries and rolled out, completely hurting from all the berries we ate.

So we cancelled our fancy dinner reservation and instead went to a little pizza place I love that makes fantastic pizza. Thin crust pizza lovers rejoice. They even have a great outdoor patio that we discovered half way through our meal. Instead, we sat next to a very very patient dad, his nine year old daughter and her friend as they were being nine-year-olds. Wow. I didn't realize girls at that age were so exhausting. Yep, that should serve as birth control for a while longer. I had a glass of wine, Ken had a Hair of the Dog's "Ruth" and then we were on our way with a foil doggy bag filled with yummy pizza for saturday morning.

And then there was Rogue. We're filled to the brim with berries and pizza, but the free t-shirt was beckoning me and I still have grad school mentality of "free ______ and I'm there" in my blood. Apparently on your birthday, you get a yard of beer (32 oz) and a free tshirt. What a sweet deal. I got a chipotle ale that I split with Ken. Then ken saw the cribbage board behind the bar and Krista brought it out for us to play... just the two of us sitting at the bar, drinking beer and playing cribbage. What a wonderful time! Then Ken felt a tap on his shoulder and there was a guy from his softball team. Wow. Our first run-in with someone we know. I left with a great t-shirt, great guy and great birthday.

And I woke up to 10 pounds of berries in the kitchen. It's going to be a good weekend.