Blackberries and Old Friends

This past Saturday, I drove 56 miles of back country roads to Daingerfield Texas. Daingerfield consists of a Dollar General, an EZ Mart gas station and Greer Farm, the u-pick blackberry and blueberry farm. As a public service, y'all need to know: if one follows GPS , they aren't going to end up at Greer Farm.

Trust me on this one. This is where the GPS took me. 

Not Greer Farm

With a bit of perseverance and more help from a passing motorist ("Go on about two more miles past the railroad tracks, turn right at the second pond then take a left after a spell."), I made my way to the blueberry and blackberry patch. Apparently, there's a main entrance somewhere, because half of East Texas also happened to show up Saturday morning and they weren't on that same country road GPS insisted I take. Below is probably a quarter of the blueberry and blackberry bushes. Somehow I managed to get pictures without the swarming crowds. Not sure how that happened...

Greer Farm

More Greer Farm

Full disclosure: I sampled a lot of blackberries. 

After an hour of blackberry picking (and eating), I paid for my haul and opted to forgo the blueberry bushes. The blueberries weren't completely ripe and I had places to go. 

From Greer Farm (and yes, I backtracked to that back road once again) I made my way another 20 miles to Mount Pleasant, Texas where I met Melissa and Barrett for lunch. I've known Melissa for 25 years. We were friends in Mesa. Barrett is her 10-month old grandson (she has 6 grands). About fifteen years ago, they moved to Sulphur Springs Texas (near Dallas). Mount Pleasant is closer to her than me, but probably the best option for the two of us. 

After a lunch of laughing and bad Mexican food, I shared my berries with Melissa, squeezed Barrett and promised to do this again before December. Kenny Rogers said it best: you can't make old friends. I needed an old friend Saturday and didn't know it. 

By the way, I had two pounds of blackberries. They all went into a blackberry cobbler for yesterday's church get-together. It was my first blackberry cobbler and strangely enough, I couldn't find a recipe. So, I modified a blueberry cobbler recipe I'd made before. My audience gave it rave reviews, however, I prefer blueberries. They are easier to find (like the grocery store) and they don't take two pounds of berries to make the recipe work. 

There's enough cobbler left for Polly, who asked me to save her a bit. However, she'd better act fast because three others might get to it first and I'm not going back to Greer Farm any time soon.