Berry Picking Time

I love berries. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, black berries, anything with an ‘errie’ in it! ~Jordin Sparks

I went raspberry picking yesterday. The rains keep coming down and the fields are wet. The day was steamy. The field where the raspberries grow in the fence row is chest high with grass since the hay hasn’t been cut yet. But I kept thinking about those berries over there going to waste. The birds and deer would tell me nothing was wasted. They love the berries too, but I was thinking more about how I wouldn’t have them! So I headed out with a bucket and waded through the grasses.

The deer had already mashed down paths around the berries. Not exactly sure how they pick them, but I guess they just nibble them off the vines. I used to have a couple of dogs that would do that. We had boysenberries at the time and if you’ve ever picked boysenberries you know that they have wicked thorns. But our dogs would eat them off the vines. I’ve been known to eat a few berries off the vines too, but I pick them first.

So I got my berries in spite of the tall grasses. In spite of the heat that had Frankie lying in the shade and wishing we’d head to the air-conditioned house. In spite of the feeling I was inviting chiggers to crawl up my pants legs. In spite of wondering if I would step on a snake any minute in the weeds. I did actually step on a terrapin. But no harm to either of us. He would have been in trouble if the cockerspaniel I used to have was still around. That dog loved finding terrapins. He’d carry them around in his mouth and relocate them. He never killed them, but he had to worry them for sure. Did you know those terrapins live for a hundred years? But that’s a story for another time.

We’re talking berries today. Thinking about picking berries brings back the memories. When I was a kid, we went berry picking as a family. Not raspberries, but blackberries. Most farm families did. The dad would find a good patch somewhere out in the fields and everybody would get a picking bucket and off you’d go. After I married and we bought the farm where we live now, we had a whole hillside of berries that were too good not to pick. So I’d get up early while the kids were still sleeping and pick a gallon. The morning would be full of birdsong. The sunshine would be that fresh new the way it is early each day. I’d come back to the house scratched and itchy, but we’d have pie and jam.

Now my son and his children like to come and pick berries for their pies and jam. Some years we’ve found plenty like the ones my granddaughter is posing with in the above picture. That was several years ago. Last year we didn’t find many. We think it was so rainy in the spring that the bees didn’t visit the blackberry blooms when they needed to. The blackberries aren’t ripe yet this year, but we may get to pick some in a few weeks. First we have the raspberries.

Spring and summer is berry time. I’m with the guy who wrote the quote above. I love anything with “erries” in it. We don’t have all these anymore, but used to we picked strawberries, then cherries, then raspberries, then blackberries. We never had blueberries, but that would have fit right in with the “erries.”

What about you? Do you love those “erries” too? Does thinking about picking berries bring up some good memories for you?