Homemade quill and blueberry ink

What do you do with too many old frozen blueberries and a serendipitous crow feather on a lazy Sunday night?

Yes.  2011.  And it wasn't alone in there....  

Turn the feather into a writing quill and make blueberry ink, of course.  Duh.

I thought it was inspired; The Husband thought I was a little crazy to be so excited about a dodgy old crow feather I plucked from the muddy ground.  He was also a little skeezed out to be honest, so I washed the feather as soon as we got home.

To hasten the juicing of the berries, I dumped a few frozen beauties into a glass bowl and microwaved them for a minute, then smooshed them.  It only takes a little bit of juice to make ink, so now I have a bunch of lukewarm mushy berries sitting around.  Ah well.

The Hubs has a bunch of these sheathed razor blades from his days as an aviation electrician, so I cut the tip of the feather with that AND DIDN'T EVEN CUT MYSELF.  It's a minor miracle.  Don't forget to cut both at an angle and a tiny vertical cut at the point.

Sneaky me slipped in a little history lesson with The Girl and GirlCousin while they thought they were having fun writing with the quill.  Heh heh heh!   (Cue pompous lecture-voice:   "Well, girls, you see... blah blah blotting paper...  yadda yadda blotting sand....")

Truthfully, I was entertained by the whole process much longer than the were the children.

But The Boy wrote this, not I.  Really!

After a the ink/blueberry juice dries, it turns from reddish-purple to a pretty navy blue.

If your inner nerd is as jazzed about a gross old feather and a few tablespoons of staining fruit juice as is mine, give it a try!   Tots easy.   Annnnd makes me want to go read Jane Austen.  Again.