If it wasn't so hot I promise I could come up with a great title.

When I was a little girl, I used to love going on summer vacation to visit our grandparents.

OK. Well, the long car ride wasn't my favorite part even though I have vivid memories of it. To this day, if I leave on a car trip before the sun comes up I am reminded of summer vacations to visit the grandparents. It's a combination of climbing into a hot, stuffy car, looking out at an ink-black, starry sky, and smelling coffee (my dad always brought a thermos of it for the ride).

The memories turn a little sour when it comes to three hours into the drive and my sister and I are fighting over space in the backseat and asking "Are we almost there yet?" every half an hour.

However, an even more purely pleasant vacation memory recently came to mind when my mother-in-law brought over some peaches she bought at a nearby farm where she and my sister-in-law went to pick blackberries.

Being in northwest Arkansas was always such a relaxing, fun part of our vacation as a kid. (That's where I came to realize Texas has no trees and there is such a thing as beauty in nature.) One activity we sometimes took part in was going to a pick-your-own-blueberries farm. There's just something fun about picking your own berries. Maybe it's my imagination, but they taste sweeter.

Now, don't get me wrong. It was HOT. And I do believe we fought the bees and mosquitoes, but it sure kept us entertained for a morning.

We also would just walk around the area where my grandparents lived and pick blackberries. Or, bring back a handful and eat the rest right off the bush.

Now, if you live in the south where it's hot as blue blazes all summer, the time to go to a pick-your-own-anything farm is straight away in the morning. You can enjoy the nature, feel like a pioneer, entertain the kids, choose your own fruits (or vegetables) and pay a LOT less than the stores charge for the same thing. Really. What more could you ask for?

And in the fall, there's pick-your-own-pumpkins. In the winter you can go chop down your own Christmas tree. It's an event for all season really.

I found a perfect website that lists, by state and counties, various options for these very activities. They even mention which farms grow organic produce.

It's getting late in the season for berries, but we took a gamble and drove out to visit one of the farms advertised on the aforementioned website. Can you believe we picked all these...

For only $16?!?

And now that I've taste-tested quite a few of our blueberries I can say without a doubt that they really are sweeter than anything you get in the store...it's not just my imagination.