I had initially wanted to attend the Tour de Fleur in Half Moon, but the tour packages are all sold out.  I guess it’s really popular and you should order the tickets months in advance.  The Tour de Fluer is organized by the city of Half Moon Bay and would include a behind the scene tours of local nurseries, wineries and farms.  Maybe next summer, so instead we went berry picking!

We headed out to Pescadero (a small town near San Francisco) for berry picking at Phipps Country Store and Farm.  It was too late for strawberry picking, but there were Boseyberries and Olallieberries.  Even thought the berries looked ripe and were black (purple), and yet they were still very sour!   A tiny few were sweet.  I’ve had mulberries that were much sweeter.  In between M and I, we picked about 1 pound of berries.  Cost of berries is $3 per lb.  Entrance fee is $3 per person, which includes tour of the animal farm full of exotic chickens, peacock, goats, and more.

I really couldn’t tell the difference between these berries, I use to just call them blackberries.  Picking blackberries remind me of my childhood in the summertime.  Our family would head out with our cousins to the nearest river for fishing and swimming.  While everyone was having fun swimming, I was the only kid busy eating ripe berries.  I guess my love for fruit has never ceased.

There were also lots of home made jams and local Pescadero honey too.  I didn’t buy any since I have too much jams and honey at home I need to finish.

The animal farm was fun too, except for the “farm” smell of animal droppings.  As much as I love the countryside, I don’t think I can handle that kind of smell for long.  Unless of course I just get use to it!  But check out the mama and baby goats, for that I may enjoy country life.

The farm was nice and much smaller then I expected.  It was a clear and sunny day at the farm.  Here is a field of beans in bloom.  I saw lots of bees and hummingbirds too.

The farm also had a nice country market filled with many varieties of dry beans.  My favorite is the “dessert pebbles” beans.  I wish I had the land to grow some of those beans.

We even stopped by and feed grass to some roadside goats.  They were more then happy to see us.  We also headed out to Pescadero State Beach.  A sad day at the beach as there was a dead sea turtle and seal too.  Not sure if it died of a shark attack or something else.  I’ve never seen a real live sea turtle before but feel a nice connection with them.  They seem like such gentle ocean creatures.  I didn’t get a photo of it as my camera ran out of battery.

And finally we ended up in Half Moon Bay watching the sun go down.  There were lots of people gathered around to watch the sun set.

Sorry for the fuzzy picture, got home, connected my camera charger and took a quick photo of the washed berries.  I ate them all before I could take another nice photo.

Life is a bowl of berries!  Some of them were sweet and some were sour, but they are all good!

On a side note:  Pescadero means “fish merchant” in Spanish.  And “pescado” is fish.