Yes, truth be told, berry picking has suddenly become my new precursor to cooking, baking and eating this summer.

In the past, I may have partaken in the occasional blackberry picking up at my cottage but I never really intentionally set out to hunt, find and pick pints of berries.

But this summer, starting with cherry picking in Door County, I've found myself mentally driven for berry picking more than once.

In Door County, it was of course classic cherries. Near Milwaukee, it's been raspberries.

On the way to Washington Island, we stopped to pick a measly gallon or two of Door County cherries. Shocked at the deal ($5 a bucket) and the sheer number of cherry trees lining the back farm, we filled two buckets.

Thirty minutes of picking proved to be enough, giving us more than enough cherries for two makes of cherry salsa, a cherry pie and cherry pecan muffins.

Closer to Milwaukee, a friend found Jelli's Market, N5648 S. Farmington Rd., in Farmington, and graciously (and with slight hesitation) shared the location of this new found stash of fresh raspberry bushes. Family owned and operated, Jellies Market is your basic pick-and-purchase small farm.

Teaming with six or seven rows of raspberry bushes, we've gone almost weekly to find hordes of sweet raspberries ripe for the picking. Willing to withstand dozens of mosquito bites, the occasional bee sting and the prickly stems of the raspberry plant, I can vouch that these berries are seriously that good.

So, this is your warning now. The season has almost passed us by; get out and go a step further than the farmer's market by picking your own produce.