Simply June

A Blueberry Summer

When I was a little girl growing up in New York state, my family and I would visit the south shore of Massachusetts every summer and stay in a cottage right on the beach. The cottage, loving named "Merry Gale" was built in 1940 by my Great Great Uncle for my Great Aunt Mary. He used lumber from his land surrounding the family cranberry bogs. The cottage is quite simple and the rooms are partitioned with walls, but the roof is the only ceiling. I would lie quietly each night as a child staring at the wood roof, discovering different figures and designs in the knotty planks. Those images were as clear as day to me and still are - my favorite being a pig with an eye patch wearing a striped bandana. My bed was the best part of my room though, it was built into the wall and pulled down lengthwise suspended by ropes and metal pulleys. We spent two weeks every summer at Mary's cottage nestled between the river and ocean and now Kolya will do the same.

Another favorite pastime at the beach was blueberry picking. There was a beautiful blueberry farm nearby and we would go there at the beginning of our stay every year to pick buckets of blueberries to enjoy with cream and sugar and in a bread pudding recipe I fondly called "Blueberry Stuff." Over the years, my father purchased blueberry bushes from this orchard and others and now has his own "blueberry farm". But, blueberries still always remind me of the summers at the beach.

I was recently talking with a friend who has started decorating her kitchen with a blueberry theme, so these blueberry tea towels are off to her. Enjoy!

On another blueberry note, if you have never read a copy of Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey, pick one up today! This is a favorite children's book to many and the illustrations a must see for any blueberry lover. It is sure to be Kolya's favorite book too as we sit on a beach blanket eating blueberries and reading...