Raspberries, Blueberries, Strawberries... and fried eggs

So I figured I'd quick throw up a video, since my son is in bed and my husband is on call fixing somebody up at the hospital.

Anyways, people probably think we are crazy, but we had so many various perennial plants and flowers throughout our yard, and my husband/father-in-law probably eliminated half of them when they mulched our landscape. There were a few bare patches, and I was so disappointed to learn that she hadn't planted anything edible (besides a few herbs), and I saw some fruit plants for relatively cheap (is $7 cheap?!) I figure if they survive the next few years, I will have gotten my moneys worth in fruit...

... so I bought them. 2 blueberry plants and a raspberry plant. I know they will grow big, but I figure the people that live here after us can take care of them by trimming them back or get rid of them if they don't want them.

Anyhow, one of my blueberry plants gets far more sun then the other- and thus blueberry season started in the Virkler household 3 weeks ago. I have yet to try them though. My son always discovers them first, and eats them before I can. The final was nice and ripe today, and fearing I might not get produce off the other one this year, I allowed him to have it so I could film him for my family's enjoyment.

I think he first thought I needed help "weeding". When he is outside with me weeding, he likes to pull off leaves and give them to me, or set them in the pile that I've created. I had to move my basil after he pulled them all out. Now he's satisfied pulling the tomato, bell pepper, and sedum leaves. At the end of the video when he runs off, guess where he's headed? Oh, the other berry plant... 

I had to swat him off of the raspberry plant though, as he eyed a nice bright red berry that isn't quite ready yet. I have a feeling that while I'm pulling weeds, it may disappear this next week.

 Do you see him eyeing it? It's like he's scoping out the best way to attack. This is how I found him when I was going to weed today. I knew the way he was intently staring, there had to be something he thought edible on it!

I also through in a couple pictures of my first attempt at freezing strawberries and making strawberry jam. I never realized just how MUCH sugar is in homemade strawberry jam. Even with the low sugar variety, my goodness!  I put up 14 qts of the Michigan ones (which I must say are sweeter then the CA ones, but probably just because they are picked fresh and go bad the next day) and an extra 10lbs of California ones after Meijer had a 50cents/lb sale the following week. Labor intensive, but pretty easy for this new midwestern wife.

The berries that make Michigan-ers proud...

Speaking of easy... I've never been able to fry an egg before. My mom just learned that tonight and laughed at me because I always try out new gourmet recipes, but its true- I've always found it too hard to fry an egg perfectly like my daddy used to, where the yolk would not look fake like at those breakfast places, but be covered in white with the runny center. I would not flip it all the way or pop the yolk or whatever, to the point that I'd end up scrambling it. Well, this morning that all changed...

Ain't it a beaut?!

I'm quite proud of it. Now if I can just get the edges a lil bit crispier, it'll be perfect. :)