I love blackberries. I grew up eating them. My mother worked at a college and I would go to the campus in the summers when school was out and have lots of fun doing all sorts of fun things while she was at work. One of the things I loved to do in the summer was pick blackberries.
The blackberry bushes at the college grew and spread over time. Initially, you had to know where they were down a back road. There weren't that many of them, but there were enough for an industrious child to be occupied for long periods of time searching for enough berries to pick and bring home. Over the years, the bushes spread to other areas of the college that weren't as meticulously maintained and they were allowed to flourish. I loved coming home with a large container of fresh berries.
Blackberries are a dangerous berry to pick though. The bushes are some of the gnarliest, thorn-ridden, densest shrubs I've ever encountered. I think as a child my nerve endings were less sensitive because I went picking in just regular summer clothes. As I got older, I would go picking in jeans, long-sleeve shirts and sometimes gardening gloves. And even then, a decent portion of the time seemed to be spent in untangling yourself, your clothes, and your hair from snagging, grabbing branches. But somehow, I managed it.
Last year, I noticed we had a small blackberry bush in the empty lot next door. I was hoping there would be plenty of berries to pick from it this year, but the lot was bought and cleared before the berries could mature. There was good news though. Last year's seeds must have been deposited down the hill just below our house as a large bush complex had sprouted. The area is in full sun all day long so the bush grew rapidly. There were lots of blackberries on it when I looked the other day.
Today I went in, in my panoply of full-blackberry gear, to get some of those blackberries. I brought my clippers so I could clear as necessary to get to the deep areas of the bush. That's when I realized my memories and expectations of blackberry picking had changed.
First, it's hot as hell in July and I'm in fall clothing, sweating and rapidly diminishing my hydration level. Second, there are seventy-eight times more thorns in blackberry bushes than I remembered. This has to be a thorn-anomaly or some sort of genetically engineered killer bush. Third, where were all the large, luscious, juicy berries? There were small and medium-sized berries, but nothing like those bulbous, gushing blackberries I see at the store.
So I kept trimming the bush, picking the few blackberries that seemed worthy of the bucket and getting poked through my heavy clothing and I thought about what had changed. Today I can go buy blackberries that are perfect in every way—better than perfect visually. And the process is easy. I just wait until I see them in the store and then I put them in the cart and buy them. When I was young, it was an adventure. It was okay that most of the berries were small and not quite ripe. I was out foraging. And it was fun.
As I climbed back up the hill I ate some of the blackberries and I was taken back to my childhood. The flavor of those wild blackberries, each different, some tart, some sweet, some bitter even, was different than the perfect store-bought ones. They were somehow better.
The Big Boy Update: Massive Mud. My friend wanted to collect some rocks for her backyard and she knew several lots had been cleared for construction in our neighborhood. She came over today and we went through two lots, bringing rocks back to our house to clean so she could take them home. My son wanted to join in the fun. Did I mention it was raining fairly hard and we were walking around in mud? He started out clean and ended up mud. All boy and all mud. He had a tremendous time.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Up and down the ottoman. She is getting good at pulling up on the ottoman. Now that she's more vertical both from sitting and standing, I'm starting to put her in the little dresses we were given as baby gifts. She looks like a mini little girl standing up in her tiny dress.
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