Kobayashi Maru

Yes, it has been a long time.  Officially this is the longest I have gone without a post of some sort since I started this voyage back in 2006.  My bad.  It’s summer and things have been hectic.  Remember that Ferf broke her foot?  She milked that for a full 2 months in a big boot and “couldn’t really walk” and I was doing WAY more than normal around the house - which is saying something cause, let me tell you, on any given day I do A LOT.  Seriously, Ferf married well!!  But I was doing way more than the way more than normal I do, and bottom line - I (a) didn’t have time (b) was too dang tired or (c) couldn’t come up with an amusing was of telling any stories for a bit.  Oh, and add to that the fact that I had been working more than ever on Ferf’s website and running the business side of her occupation and well, one can only do so much.  At least I can only do so much.  A dear friend of mine recently said to me, “turns out I have a ceiling.”  Evidently I too have one, and unfortunately, the Maru was on the other side of it for a bit.  But two things have me encouraged - first, I am back on the Maru.  Second, I may have a ceiling, but at least it ain’t glass!!  (though that would be so cool during a thunderstorm - but probably not so much during a hurricane)

Anyways, this summer was back to nature here on the Maru.  We, as a family, spent a good deal of time outside and got back to the whole natural eating thing we had slipped away from for a bit.  To that end - we did some serious canning and freezing. So if Y2K ever shows up again, I suppose we’ll be ready.  But don’t you come knocking on my door simply because you didn’t prepare like I did.  I don’t have enough for everyone - but my neighbor down the street does still have a chemical toilet left over from 1999, and he’d prolly let you use that if you came by and needed it.

So, one of the things that Ferf wanted to do this summer was to get some fruit - lots of fruit.  She wanted blueberries, a whole lot of blueberries.  The upside of living where we do in Canada is that fruit grows here like mushrooms in sheeit.  It is everywhere and it is wonderfully sweet and juicy and yummy.  For those of you who were not blessed with knowing me as a young child (and believe me that would truly have been a blessing to you) you would not know how strange it is for me to have written a sentence like that last one - no, not the you would have been blessed to know me as a kid one…the one before that about fruit and it being described with terms like yummy goodness.  As a child I was NOT a fruit fan.  I would eat apples (red delicious only) and occasionally grapes (especially green seedless ones frozen in the freezer).  That was about it.  I simply did not like the flavor or the texture of such things.  I figured that if eating a piece of fruit caused the freaking fall of man, then I was better served to stay away from such things.  Imagine how much better off we’d all be if Adam hadn’t liked fruit.

Genesis 3

The Fall of Man

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³ but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”

“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. ⁵ “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her.

But Adam was not a fan of fruit and said to his wife, “No thank you.”  His wife said to Him, “But I have taken of it and eaten and did not die.”  Adam cocked his head to the side and said to her, “Look woman, this has nothing to do with the rightness or wrongness of eating a piece of freaking fruit.  You wanna listen to a dang snake, you go right ahead.  But I don’t like fruit all that much, so back up off me woman.”

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and she hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.  But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”

He answered, “I’m over here, watching my wife try to hide from you in a berry patch.  I told her the thorns would hurt, but she dove right in.  It’s crazy!  She said she had to hide cause she’s nekkid”

And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she ate some.”

Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Then Adam said, “honestly, I don’t know what’s gotten into this one Lord.  She’s hanging out with snakes, eating bad fruit.  The whole thing is sketchy to me.”

And the Lord, wiped serpents, Eve and fruit off the face of his creation and replaced them with dogs that could speak, beer and women that were totally hot and utterly compliant.”

But that is not how it went down, and here we are today.  But that is not really the point of this post, I was simply letting you know that I used to loathe fruit and now, I really like it.   No, the point of this post is the berry picking portion of the story, which I haven’t even been able to get to yet, cause that saucy tart Eve screwed stuff up so long ago.  We’re still paying the price for her…<sigh>

Anyway, back to the story…let’s see, fruit, yummy goodness, oh yes, I remember!  Ferf wanted fruit.  We have an abundance of “you pick it” fruit farms around us here in the valley.  She thought we might go pick some fruit.  Blueberries to be exact - cause it was blueberry season and she wanted like A LOT of them.  I am into this a bit, but still leery that I will be doing the majority of the picking because the Muppet will enjoy it for about 10 mins before she gets utterly bored and Ferf has the broken foot…SO, I ask the ever-lovin’ wifey how many berries she is thinking about obtaining.  She tells me, “no more than a hundred pounds.”  Oh, good.  Nice to have an upper limit.  100 FREAKING POUNDS OF FRUIT!?  Are you kidding me??  And you want to PICK IT?  BY HAND???  “Well,” she tells me, “it would be cheaper.”

Admittedly, that does tend to get me attention.  “How much cheaper?” I ask.  “I can call and ask,” she replies.  (don’t you love the witty banter we have in our home.  We’re like the Gilmore Girls, only we’re not named Gilmore, and we’re not mother and daughter, and we’re not both female, and..you know what - turns out we’re nothing like the Gilmore Girls…just ignore that whole train of thought.)  SO she calls.  Turns out that to have them picked is $0.10/pound more than you picking them.  Hmmm…so if we got 100 pounds, that would be a $10 difference in total price…It would probably take me 2 days to pick that many berries doing 8 hour days, so my time would in fact be worth…<add the two, sum up, carry the naught, divide by the sum of the parts> $0.62/hour.

So we called and ordered 100 pounds of already picked berries.  WooHoo!!  The next day I got to the berry farm to pick up said berries.  I go to the counter and give them my name and they go to get the berries.  As I am standing there, I figure I’d give something a shot…So I ask the girl, “Since I am buying so much at once - I assume I get a bluk discount, right?”  She looks a little bewilderd, but says, ” I can give you $0.10 off per pound.”

That would be excellent!!!

I love berries!!!