Raspberries, raspberries & more raspberries

Each day of my stay in Pennsylvania we picked ginormous bowls of raspberries from my grandma's raspberry patches. I have a little backyard at our place in Austin and I kept trying to estimate how large her patches were in comparison to our backyard. I'm thinking 3 backyards. (My backyard is the size of 4 small bedrooms.) Do you like my estimations? I should just guess in square feet...

Above, a normal morning's pick.

The berries start to get moldy after just one day (!!), so mom froze a ton of them and we juiced some. We hand squeezed the juice to fill the contents of the jar above. We used the old school pillowcase method! Lots of squeezing and big mess. The above jar is on its way to becoming raspberry vinegar.

After seeing how much work my mom has to do to juice (raspberries, tomatoes, etc.), I decided to order her a much needed gift: a Breville juicer (same as the one I own). Above she's enjoying using it for the first time.

A few days before I left, mom ordered a dehydrator. It came in the mail the day before I was leaving and we attempted to dehydrate some berries for me to take with me on the next stop of my trip. Sadly, after 15 hours, they still weren't finished! Mom said they eventually finished later that day, but sheesh! So long.

I wish I'd made the raspberries scones I intended to, but we kept ourselves busy with everything else. Mom made lots of raspberry tea (delicious) and we ate as many fresh berries as we could before freezing or juicing.

****
I'm back in Austin now, but more to share soon from PA and from visiting friends in DC.

Have a great weekend!