Blackberry Morning

I did my first blackberry picking today. I know that some folks have been picking for a while, especially those with cultivated berries. But mine are in the hollow and most are still the hard, shiny pink of a newborn kitten's nose.

I pick along the dirt road down past our farm. That makes me smile. If you want to know the story behind that, read Poor Folks Have Poor Ways . And then I stepped over a low spot in the barbed fence and picked inside the field.

I usually wear a dress and garden clogs, but I had decided this time to try to save some of the meat on my legs by wearing my son's jeans. They are more holes then pants, but the fabric is thick enough I can actually push through bushes and not leave a blood trail. My hubby was leaving for work as I was walking out the door with my basket. He had already preached to me about spraying myself with some kind of poisonous DEET he had up in the shop; I let the words wash over me while I played internal elevator music. Then he stopped me and told me I really ought to wear his knee high boots. I couldn't help it, my face gives me away. That one eyebrow crept up to my hairline. “Seriously,” he said, “They are snake boots.” And this man has been married to me for 24 years. No, Dear Reader, I did not laugh hysterically at that. It was too early in the morning for me to show that much emotion. I almost asked him, innocently, if they were snake “attractant” boots, because that might be fun. Instead, I reminded him that not only was I not afraid of snakes, but that they were probably a lot more afraid of me. He was unsatisfied, and would have stayed to perhaps tell me how I should pick the actual berries themselves (I know, I'm horrible! And completely unrepentant...), but I smooched him goodbye and ran away.

If you have never picked wild blackberries you have no idea of the trials. For one thing, chiggers have a state convention each year and figure out which patches are going to have the best amounts of fruit. Then they pack up all the aunts, uncles, grannies, and cousins, and everybody heads there to stake out the place. Ticks are not quite as smart, but lots of them get the memo and hightail it over to the patch as well. Plants are supposed to be smart enough to respond to sounds and tones of voice. Mythbusters did a test on this and it was confirmed. It just shows that everything in this beautiful world responds better to kindliness. But how on earth is poison ivy smart enough to pick blackberry thickets as the choice area to proliferate?? It's a conspiracy against us humans, I swear! But I can't think too harshly of them all, 'cause we humans are a pretty rotten lot.

If that was all, it would be enough, but black berries themselves fight back with every fiber of their being. Every stem is covered with thorns that point in all different directions and are barbed like fishhooks. Once one snags you, it is not just a simply matter of shaking free. Oh no, you have to extricate yourself, possibly impaling finger tips in the process, while being careful that when you let the thing go, it doesn't snap back and catch you in an even more tender spot.

As I picked, I ruminated on the pros and cons of jeans. It did not help that the ones I was wearing kept trying to fall off, but I find jeans that do fit to be uncomfortable. And HOT, I tell you, the sun had hardly begun to peek at me and I was sweating! A dress is both comfortable and cool. And then I had a crawly... Any of you country folks know what I'm talking about. When you feel that little something making it's stealthy way up your leg. ACK! That is a terrible feeling, and at least with a dress you can fling it over your head (in a modest and ladylike way, of course) and find the nasty little sucker. In pants you can only grit your teeth and hope it hasn't bit down by the time you finish. I guess I have to say that thorn-proofness is the only redeeming quality of jeans. I am thankful to still have the skin on my legs. Now if my hubby had offered tick boots I would have taken him up on it...

Of all the silly complaining, I loved every minute of it. I did not have to “beat the crowds”, or pay the $50 for three gallons that was the advertised special at a local farm. A breeze was blowing, the dogs were happily snooting about, and the view...Well, I live in a little bit of Paradise. Every time I consider the county thinking about paving our dirt road, my insides go all cold and panicy. I want my grandbabies to totter down the dusty red lane with me, picking berries and looking at bright yellow hay bales in green fields lined with Queen Anne's lace. How could a person not be happy with all this around them?

I picked all the ripe berries that I could reach, even the tiny, knobby, unappetizing ones. I was picking the blackberries for jelly, and every single ugly little knob will make beautiful juice. I finished with almost a gallon, and I would say that not even 1/4 of the berries had begun to ripen. With any luck, and a bit of rain, it will be a bumper year. When I left off picking I went straight to my moma and pop's. (I've said lots before that we live on the same farm, the one my great granny and grandad bought. And I have a son and daughter-in-law that will soon have a house here- I can't wait!) But anyways, I went over there because they have a tiny above-ground pool from when I was about eleven years old. And it is chlorinated. I stripped down and jumped in, imagining all the chiggers and poison ivy being neutralized by the chlorine, and did a thorough tick check. I had been sweltering in those pants and the water was so chilly I was instantly cool. A little blue-tail lizard came and sat in the sun with me. I climbed out and went home without even drying off. It was lovely. And when I arrived back home it was only 8:20 in the morning. Time to feed all the critters, gather eggs, and start my regular chores.

And I'm only itching just a little bit...

Hey, Sugar! If you enjoyed this, you might like these as well...

Blackberry-Peach Cobbler 

Blackberry-lavender Dacquiose 

Blackberries 4 Ways