Guess what we saw today???/

We took a little round about drive today...my throat is scratchy and I did not feel like sitting at home. So, we stopped at Mansfield, and headed home via back roads. I had been watching all day for an turkeys and/or an eagle. No luck with the turkeys...but we were easing along a road between Bridgeton and Mansfield and this big handsome fellow took off from right beside our Rav...
I was so startled I could not react quick enough. He literally had flown right over the top of the Rav....he had to have been sitting in the tree right beside the road, but I had been watching the other way never expecting one to be right there next to the road.

I was literally shaking with excitement so bad I could not hold my camera still! I don't know why I do that sometimes...

Oh, and by the way, even though his mouth is open, he was not making a sound....

Blackberry blossoms...

I have been noticing the blackberry blossoms--I think they are so pretty. I love blackberry cobbler and blackberry jelly. Mom always made both.

When mom made blackberry jelly, she did not use pectin...I don't even know if she had heard of it. She always used just sugar to add to the juice and boiled it till it would set up. There was a ratio she used...I think one part sugar to 2 parts juice. One time we had been out picking--I don't remember how many of us had been picking...it might have just been the two of us or it might have been one of my brothers with me.

Anyway, we each had a 2 1/2 gallon bucket almost full. Mom cleaned them and boiled them to get the juice....then proceeded to put 2 parts sugar to 1 part juice--totally opposite of what it was supposed to be...before she realized what she had done. So off we headed to pick a LOT more berries...Mom was extra late that evening getting all that jelly made.

Just another little memory I thought I would share.