I wish that the internet had a smell feature, because the smell wafting out of my kitchen right now is just divine.  I'm baking blackberry and peach crumbles (separate ones, not blackberry and peach mixed together) and they smell good enough to make my tummy rumble.

We went to Brautigum's orchard this morning and picked our berries right off the bush.  Brautigum's is smaller and makes the other local 'country' orchard look like an industrial conglomerate.  Mr Brautigum let us wander around his farm (it's a working farm; he's not a 'gentleman farmer') and Dave and I got some good tips for when we finally set up our own little homestead.  I particularly liked the henhouse - Dave, being the man that he is, made various comments about how we'd need a big cock, three or four big cocks, that may be the biggest cock he ever saw and so on, snickering the whole time. *sigh*   We decided that we'd like a blackberry bush in addition to an apple and a cherry tree. 

This homestead idea has been a dream of ours for quite some time now.  We want to move back to South Dakota, find ourselves a little place - a dilapidated place, a trailer, a camper, anything - and start our quest to be semi-self sufficient.  We're sure that we want some chickens (Dad raised chickens, so I've got some good experience with hens, roosters - cocks, tee hee -and eggs), a vegetable garden, a couple of fruit trees and now a blackberry bush.  We toyed with the idea of having a pig, but decided against it.  I doubt that I'd be able to send it off to slaughter and we'd end up with a 400lb pet, so that idea got nixed.  I want a sheep - for obvious reasons - and I'd love to have an alpaca, but they're pretty spendy animals ($20,000).  I've been trying to sell him on a couple of pygmy goats, and whilst he's not saying 'hell no' anymore he's not saying 'heck yes' either.  We've also researched bee keeping and, depending on the size and location of the place we end up in, we might be able to do that too.  

I wish that my dad had lived long enough to see me put into practice the skills I learned watching him when I was a child.  He had an extensive vegetable garden and raised crops year-round - in fact, I can't recall mum ever buying fresh vegetables from the store.  Fruit, yes - apart from apples - but vegetables, no.  He taught me that there's a certain freedom that comes from not having to depend on an outside source to feed yourself; that there's a great deal of satisfaction in eating something that you grew from a seed.  I know, however, that he still sees me - he knows what I'm doing, what my plans are.  I know that he'd approve, and I hope that he'd be proud.

I just took the blackberry crumble out of the oven and put the peach ones in.  Man, do they look good, and I'll bet they're going to taste good too.  Maybe I'll make some custard to pour over them, or perhaps a scoop of vanilla ice-cream would be better.  I'll let you know how they taste.

I'm going to go eat.