Ham Orchards

Well Cooper had so much fun blueberry picking, that we decided to go blackberry picking this week too!  We had been to Ham Orchards a few years back with some friends and I've been wanting to take Cooper but we hadn't yet.  So when I saw that their blackberry patch would be open another couple of weeks I asked David if he wanted to go with us and he said he did.  So we put it on our calendar for Saturday morning since it's our last free weekend before we're out of town for a couple of weekends.

We stopped and got breakfast at Chick-fil-A in Forney on our way out to the orchards in Terrell.  The drive is a little less than an hour from our apartment, but I used to be in Terrell or Forney almost every day for work, so it was a little weird being back out that direction after not being there for so long.

We grabbed a bucket for picking and headed to the blackberry patch.  Before we started picking, David and Cooper had a talk about how we weren't going to eat any of the blackberries until we paid for them.

And then we got to work picking!  He did a really good job finding the ripe ones and leaving the red ones on the bushes.

And he started off strong with putting them in the bucket instead of eating them.

After a few rounds of him stuffing them in his mouth, he and David took a little time out to talk about it again.

And then he was back to picking.  It took lots of reminders and even several times of us physically guiding his hand to put the berry in the bucket instead of his mouth, but he really did a good job not eating too many until we could pay for them.

We were out picking near another family and I saw them grabbing a selfie so I offered to take a picture for them and they returned the favor.  Love these boys! 

After a little while Cooper was much more excited to run free in the rows of bushes.  We got there right as they opened so it wasn't too crowded so he had lots of space to run.

He was a happy boy out in the fields!  But once he heard there was ice cream back at the store he was ready to call it a day.

We managed to get a pretty good haul with David and I both picking berries as we went too!  And it was a pretty good price for all of the blackberries we walked away with.

We headed back to their store and paid for our blackberries.  Then we got some homemade ice cream.  David got strawberry and I got peach and they were both really good.  We shared with Cooper which he liked, but it wasn't long before he took over my cup and spoon...

The many faces of a happy ice cream eating toddler!

After our ice cream we went back in to the store to buy some salsas and other goodies.  Since it was starting to get crowded I put Cooper in the carrier on my back to help keep him contained and he was happy as could be.  They have a ton of salsas, jams, honey, produce, fudge, pies, cobblers, dressings, etc. etc. etc.  We got a few salsas and jams and called it a day.  They serve BBQ for lunch but we would have had to wait a while before it was ready so we decided to head home and eat on the way home instead.

It was a fun morning with our little family!  I think this might become an annual tradition for us because there is just so much to do out there, it definitely feels worth the drive.