Adventures in Picking Fruit

Christian and I got to celebrate our anniversary yesterday, thanks to Auntie Yaya, Marmie, and Boppa watching the kids for us! We got to Oak Creek at about 9:30am and spent about an hour and half picking blackberries, coming away with almost two gallons of berries! (I'm just freezing them right now and will hopefully get more creative with them later "when I have more time") At one point in the morning I heard Christian make a manly squeal and assumed he had found a big spider in one of the thousands of spider webs in the blackberry canes. I started feeling a little proud of myself and my boldness in reaching past those spider webs to get the beautifully ripe berries. Of course I wasn't actually seeing spiders, so in retrospect it wasn't really all that bold. :) I hollered out to Christian, "I feel like living in Doney Park has made me braver since I know that at least none of these spiders would be black widows! (we have lots on our property) He chuckled and said he was very proud of me. I started sort-of following behind Christian at a distance, thinking that maybe I was finding berries he had missed. I was comparing myself to Ruth gleaning in Boaz's field (it seemed to me like Christian was leaving a lot behind) when I decided to make my way up a little hill. Almost at the top of the hill I heard a loud "BUZZZZZZZ", looked down and saw a probably 15 inch long rattle snake!!!!! To my credit I actually jumped back from the creature while shrieking, instead of jumping over it like the last two snake encounters in Africa. And I managed to hang on to my almost-full container of berries! Christian came back with me to our depot of berries not too far away and suggested I stay put for awhile and calm down while he continued the berry-picking. Sounded good to me! Within a few minutes I heard Christian's manly squeal again- yep- he came across the snake again, though he thought he was avoiding it. So he made his way down and around the Snake Hill and found a gold mine of a berry patch, so he convinced me to come help him take advantage of it, my heart pounding the whole time. But it was worth it. Wouldn't have been worth it if we had actually been bitten of course. On our way back to the car we ran into a gopher snake that was probably 2 feet long. It was almost as if God were chuckling at my pride of conquering my fear of the spider webs and saying, "Ok, how about snakes?" :) Later in the day we were picking peaches at a friend's house in Camp Verde and the trees were covered with HUNDREDS of June bugs, that sound very much like rattle snakes when you're already feeling paranoid. So Christian did all the picking while I caught the peaches and put them in the crates in between shrieking and diving for cover every time a fresh group of bugs took off flying. I'm sure the neighbors enjoyed the entertainment, if they were peeking through their windows. :) Later in the afternoon we went for a bike ride around the wetlands at Kachina Village and got caught in the rain and then hail. All in all, though, we loved the chance to be together and will remember and laugh at that day for years to come! No, neither one of us managed to remember to pull out the camera! Sorry!