I hate being sick! The worst part of being sick is that number of things to get done multiples exponentially!

Friday evening, as I left work, I did what I usually do on the bus ride home.... prioritize the tasks to complete over the next few days. Most weekends/evenings, I know what I am going to tackle (Yep! Doing nothing and lounging in front of the TV counts towards my things-to-do. I have become a compulsive-doer-of-something, even if something is sleeping! Weird! I know, but that is the only way I seem to get some free time).

This past weekend was not any different from the others, the task list included: Read Harry Potter, Watch movie: Shooter, Clean and reorganize whole kitchen (something was not correct and it kept bothering me), Rip staircase carpeting, Wine Tasting, Trip to Home Depot (list ready), Trip to Jordan’s Furniture (Reading), Meet Lee (Starbucks) and of course the normal other weekend stuff of laundry, ironing, kitty time blah blah blah. By the time I reached home, though, my throat was scratchy, nose was running, and eyes were watering. Oh! Crap! I popped some medicines and flopped on the couch. My kitties kept me company!
Weekend, I did make the trip to Jordan’s, to meet Lee and check out some furniture. But Lee was not there, so spent more time in Jordan’s looking at office desks and curio cabinets. This is where my head hurt like crazy and I started to feel dizzy. Maybe I should eat! I did, but it simply went from bad to worse. I trooped to Home Depot, (thank goodness this was easy, I had a list and knew exactly what I wanted to get). By the time I got home. I knew I was doomed! It was going to be a bad migraine. I don’t suffer very often, but prolonged exposure to heat at 85+ deg is a sure trigger for me.

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were spent curled up in bed, with all curtains closed, and kitties sitting at the foot of my bed, going “meow” every time I twitched or turned. Poor things! I think they knew I was sick! I am finally back at work this morning and it is a struggle! I am headed home today and curling up and my task to do is _NOT_ to think about the tasks to do!

I love lilies, especially if they are growing in my yard.

July 14th: Berry Picking.

Last year, I picked strawberries (20lbs) and blueberries (20.9lbs). For both the pickings, I had one more person with me and that helped in the poundage that we picked. Once they were brought home, these lovely berries were packaged into small serving bags and frozen. I am very pleased to report that this was indeed a very successful experiment. After a year, I am still enjoying gorgeous frozen strawberries and them blueberries. YUM!

This year, with all the travel in June, I missed the strawberry season altogether! There was one weekend I could have gone picking, but I was told that the thunderstorms had not been kind to the strawberries. No strawberries, this year. I am bummed out. :( I still have about 3lbs from last year's freezing going pretty strong.

I moved on to watching out for blueberry and raspberry picking. Last year's blueberry picking at Turkey Hill Farm, Haverhill, MA was incredible. See pictures from last year. This year the crop is predicted to meet, if not beat, last years produce. Instead of waiting till early August, I thought I will go a little early for couple of reasons. They were:
a) I wanted to see what early season picking looked like
b) The farm was offering excellent raspberry (red and yellow) picking, and last year I missed that in August.
c) Early August I really want to go to Ipswich (Russell Orchards) for Peach Festival. Good Lord! This is turning out to be a full fledged project plan with deadlines, milestones and timing it all just right, neither too early nor too late for peak picking.

In a nut-shell the plans are:
1. July 14th: (Turkey Hill Farm, Haverhill, MA) blueberry early picking. Check raspberries and pick if possible.
2. August 11: (Russell Orchards, Ipswich, MA) Peach Festival and Farm Stand
3. August (third week....): peach picking? Can that be rolled into the Peach Festival? Perhaps not.
4. Sept: apple picking... been there.... done that.... now I am bored with it! Maybe some late raspberry.....
5...... Whew! I need a freezer!

Check off the item 1!

7AM on July 14th, I found my self armed with sunscreen, straw hat, comfortable clothes, shoes, water and most important a coffee, and driving to Haverhill, MA. The temperature was already reading 69 deg and promises to be gorgeous day with temperatures around 75 deg and cool breezes. My kind of day; not too hot, and not too cold, and just right with the cool breeze. The previous two days, the weather has been very kind, with sunny clear warm days and cool evenings. The kind weather has led to ripe and plump berries. I can hardly wait to see, smell, and taste them.

By 8AM, I have parked and ready to pick raspberries. On the recommendation of the farm stand girl, I start with raspberries, because you have to be infinitely more patient with these little red ones, to plop them from the center core without crushing the berry. If the berry is ripe it yields easily. If it is not ripe enough then the berry breaks off at the stem. If it is too ripe, then you are left holding a tablespoon of juice instead of a berry. So, picking is slow and careful. Did I mention that these berry bushes are about couple feet wide and couple feet in height and to get to the great large ripe berries, you have to bend in odd angles to avoid breaking tender stems and yet diving into these bushes. Bending at odd angles, stretching is all fine, but these little shrubs come armed with soft thorns on the stems. Those thorns are soft, but they are still thorns! My arms are a mess! Actually a MESS!

By 10AM, I have 8 pints of red raspberries! They are gorgeous! They are red, juicy, tart and by god, they are yummy! I must have had 4-5 berries while picking. (NOTE: It is considered stealing to eat more than just a few)

By 10:15AM I am ready to pick blueberries. The sun is climbing and so is the temperature. So, with more sunscreen and water, I am back at picking. My back, is starting to grumble, but the warmth is keeping it happy. blueberry are infinitely easier to pick. For one, they are taller plants about 4-5 feet and each branch is loaded with blue/black-bombshells. So, pretty much standing, or squating, or crawling under the little tree gets the job done. By this time, there are fellow veteran pickers who have joined me in picking. Or rather I have joined them as they are well underway in their picking from 8AM. Dave, the owner and farmer has joined us. So, once again I am amongst blueberry pickers and chatting about blueberries, joking and enjoying the weather.

By 11:30AM: I have 13.6lbs of blueberries! What can I say, they are yummy! I need a break now. My back is gone stiff and besides I needed a restroom break. So, the farm stand is hold my pickings, while I take a much needed break. Refreshed and ready for some yellow raspberries! I knew I had about an hour more before the heat would get to me and back would freeze up on me. So, I attacked the yellow raspberries. They are sweeter than the reds. Two pints is all I could get. These are harder to get and lesser in production.

By 12:30PM: My back has called it a day about 10 mins ago! All that bending, stretching, holding, crawling for extended period of time, has frozen my back. I am done. 13.6lbs blueberries, 10 pints of raspberries (8 red and 2 yellow). I call it a great day for picking! On to eating them, sharing them, freezing them (if any is left over :)) and ah.. well! resting my back.

Now for some mouth-watering pictures:

Wandering around 35 acres of woodlands, lawns on a hot day with temperature climbing into mid 90 degrees, is a perfect afternoon. Thanks to my cousin's wife, who researched and pulled out the details for the same, we (the family) clambered into two cars, and drove over.

We spent sometime in the Museum, which in itself houses some really cool artistic works, from painting to photography of decayed flowers and from basket woven monstrosity to adventures of Spudnik, it was a fantastic display of art and science in creative harmony.

After a quick bite at the museum cafe, we headed out to wander in the woodlands. The sculptures were fantastic. Here are some that I really loved.

Gates to where?	35 acres and a pond too!
I don't think this was a sculpture, but looked to me like one.	Somebody forget their top hat?
Dead-men walking... (my favorite, love the pine cones)	Oh! Tunes!

The plan was to take trip downtown Nashville. I had tickets to the shuttle from the hotel to downtown and also the trolley tours that would take me around downtown Nashville. But I was in no shape to do that. With the heat exposure of the previous day, I was too sick to move out of my bed, forget going into sightseeing or hobnobbing with people.

So, I stayed put in the hotel room, ordering room service (expensive, but nice!) and watching movies (very nice) and sleeping (great!).

Besides I was suffering from a sensory overload with all the planning, traveling, and blah blah.... So, it was great to relax, do nothing and we are done.

Saturday, was the seven-hour-guided trip to Lynchburg (Pop. 361), home of the Jack Daniels distillery. It is the oldest registered distillery in the country. On the way, I ask myself, do I like whisky? Like everything in Nashville, TN, the answer is 'not really', but the lure of visiting to a) check it off 'the list' and b) I like how alcohol (any alcohol) is made. 

Some of the quirks of this town:
1. The population listed as 361 for this town. Does it mean that every time a child is born, somebody has to leave town? Dunno the reason, and no one in town knew. Or they did know, and mentioned it to me in their thick southern accent and I did not understand.
2. This is the home of Jack Daniels... the whisky of this country... and it is a dry town! So, no sampling.... argh! What the devil! Apparently, the town had to appeal to the state and federal courts to allow the distillery to sell one 750 ml bottle per customer!
3. For a tiny town, it has more BBQ restaurants and souvenir shops in the square than it has actual houses.

The tour was great. It was indeed fun to see the process. In short:
1. Charcoal, is what makes Jack Daniels what it is, whisky of this country. Wood is stacked and carefully burnt for 3-4 hours to form charcoal. The wood stacks are called 'ricks' and so the building where it is made is called 'Rickyard'. This is where a group photo was taken and is posted on Jack Daniels website. Charcoal is then ground to form small nuggets.

2. Spring water is used to make the brew and it comes from limestone cave springs. There are several on the premises. This is iron free, pure water. The grain (corn, barley and rye) comes mostly from Texas. Together it forms the 'Mash'. When the mash is created, some of it is held back to mix with the next batch to maintain some consistency from one batch to another. This mash that is held back is sour, hence the name of Jack Daniels is also 'Sour Mash Whisky'

3. The Mash is cooked and fermented in copper cauldrons. This looks like goo! and smells even worse. The 'goo' is then distilled into clear liquid. This liquid is sent to the Charcoal Mellowing. This a huge barrel roughly six feet diameter and 10-12 feet tall, full of charcoal (made in step 1), and small water pipes dripping the clear spirit at the top. The liquid has to make it way down 10-12 feet of charcoal. This mellows the spirit. The spirit is then whisked away into barrels made of white oak. Interestingly, the barrels are one-time use only and then shipped to Canada, Ireland and other places for scotch aging. At the end, of course is the bottling and shipping.

For lunch I headed into the town square, and was completely overwhelmed with the thousands of bikers in town. We had managed to place ourselves right in the middle of a biker rally. It was frightening. The only time bikers I know are in the movies, and they were somehow always (atleast the ones I have seen) depicted as rowdy, mean, terrifying, brawling menaces. So, it was very scared me, wandering in this middle of nowhere town. For once, I was happy that this was a dry town! Yeah! At the very least no one was drunk. I wandered around trying to get some courage to step into a restaurant to get some lunch. I finally did! This restaurant is really informal with long tables and you pretty much sat anywhere and shared table with others around. The only place open was between a family and four bikers. Yikes! But my stomach got better of me, and I sat down. Within seconds a menu materialized and I buried my head in it. I could not decide what to order, so when the hostess came back to ask, I asked her to suggest something. Somehow, my conversation attracted the entire tables' attention. Perhaps it was my accent or perhaps they wanted to suggest. Within seconds, whole table was suggesting what I should eat, asking from where I was, and commenting that east coast does not make any sensible BBQ. I settled on BBQ chicken, red beans and rice (YUM!). Somehow, additional food items appeared in front of me, the folks at the table wanted me to sample almost everything on the menu. An hour tater, I was still at the table, not eating anymore, but chatting with everyone, as if we were old friends. I think each one of us were amused at the others accents. At least I was with the thick southern accent and they were pretty much tickled silly hearing me speak.

After spending annoying amount of money in Jack Daniels glassware and Whisky (Let me know, if you are a whisky fan, you can have the alcohol, as long as I get the bottle back), we headed back to Nashville. It was almost 4pm in the afternoon, and I was beginning to get sick! Not from food or 'foreign' water, not with anything else other than heat. It was blistering 96+ deg F. I went through half of my sunscreen (spf 30) bottle, but that does squat for heat itself. I fair well between 50-75 deg weather. Below 50, I am okay, but as soon as that gauge starts to edge towards 80 deg, I hide under available shade. If I don't, I am heading for disasters. I barely made it to my room and there was nothing else to do but, crawl under the sheets of comfortable 65 deg room and passed out. One would think I am drunk!

Wednesday, June 14th to Monday, June 18th, I was in Nashville, TN. The first 48 hours from the time I landed (around Wednesday noon time) till Friday noonish, I was working. But after that was all play time in the Music City of America. The next few days blog are really written on Sunday, but thought it was more meaningful if it is posted on the day it happened.

Friday afternoon, after seeing the team off, I wandered to the Mall next to the Gaylord Opryland. For one thing, I needed the exercise and for another, I had nothing planned and for yet another, it was too blazing hot to be outdoors. So, with an ice cream cone in hand, I wandered around aimlessly in the Mall. It is weird, when I have nothing planned to buy; that's when I find everything that I need, at the price I am willing to pay. Additionally, when I have limited space in bag to pack, that is also when I find some of the best deals, too irresistible to pass off. So, my solution was to pretty much 'weigh' everything I had as I shopped. I shopped at Dress Barn, Naturalizer shoes, Harry & David, Apple Barn, and odds & ends stores. At the start of my trip I had one rolling upright bag (22 lbs) and one laptop briefcase. By the time I was done; the weight in the rolling upright had crept to 44 lbs! And along with my laptop, a large brown bag with all the collectible glassware from Jack Daniels and Nashville, roughly at 10-11 lbs. I must be insane!