Pick-your-own fruits and a trip back to Sep 1862

On Jun 28, a group of us went to a pick-your-own (PYO) fruit farm in Maryland. It was the beginning of blueberry and raspberry seasons.

When we arrived at the farm around 10am, some early birds had already finished picking tray loads of fruits. Most pickers sampled the fruits while picking them.

Picking blueberries and raspberries was an experience since I had not picked them before and I did not know how the bearing plants look like. I was told to tickle a bunch of blueberries where the ripe blue fruits would simply drop, leaving the green and red unripe fruits on the branch. I found this method not working for me. Instead, I picked only the bigger berries among the ripe fruits as I found that they were sweeter upon sampling different sizes of ripe ones. Blueberries are a good source of anti-oxidants.

I was surprised that a raspberry shrub has thorns. Having no clue to how a ripe raspberry looks like, I took a peek at someone's harvest and noticed the harvest consisted only of maroon fruits and not the bright red ones.

Thereafter, we headed towards Antietam National Park and managed to join the last conducted tour. A park ranger recounted the single bloodiest day of the American Civil War at different sites, dotted by cannons and monuments to the dead. Seeing pictures of dead bodies piled high up was disheartening. I also revisited Burnside's Bridge, rather than kayaking under it.