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June 14, 2004
Berry Picking Time
Summer is pert near here, so it's berry picking time. We went to a u-pick place up past the Rogers airport Saturday for blueberries. They've a bumper crop this year (blackberries too which should be ready in a couple of weeks), so we filled our buckets in short order. Though I did discover my fingers aren't nearly as nimble as they were when I was younger.
After we returned home, Mike started cooking blueberry syrup and I decided to go harvest our dewberries that grow on a steep bank by our mailbox. Unlike blackberries, dewberries around here grow on a vine....an evil thorn-covered vine that also is covered in little hair-like stickers much like those on a cactus. They grow in the same places other evil vines grow, like poison ivy. But Mike loves them, so I got a bowl and waded in. 30 minutes or so later, I had about 2 cups, which Mike ecstatically pronounced just enough to make dewberry syrup.
While Mike was cooking his beloved dewberries, I sat down to get all the nasty stickers from the dewberry vines out of my hands. Mike said "You know, if I could figure out how to bottle this & ship it safely, I'd send Steve some of this."
"The hell with Steve," I replied. "I didn't wade through the stickers, chiggers and poison ivy for Steve."
"Oh no," he quickly said. "I meant the blueberry syrup, not the dewberries."
Nice save.
Posted by Rita at June 14, 2004 07:31 AM
Comments
The man can DANCE! Aluminum siding, anyone?
Posted by: Bill at June 14, 2004 08:36 AM
It's been a long time since I've a-berry picking! I miss those days.
Posted by: yayaempress at June 14, 2004 08:50 AM
Bill, your brother can charm the birds down out of the trees when he sets his mind to it. And I suspect so can you and Sean. Silver-tongued devils the entire lot of ye. ; )
I hadn't picked blueberries in a long time. These were so loaded with fruit that their branches were bent over almost to the ground. Easy pickin's. What I really wish I could find up here are huckleberries. Those are my favorites, even if you're guaranteed to get covered with chiggers when you pick them.
Posted by: rita at June 14, 2004 09:35 AM
I got through that with only three chiggar bites... and the dew berry syrup was killer on ice cream.
As far as the "dancing"... when I sobered up I found that telling the truth was the easiest way to stay out of trouble... if you know that you will not allow yourself to lie, you don't do the kind of things that you would want to lie about... a simple solution to a problem that used to eat up most of my day.
Posted by: Mike S at June 14, 2004 06:50 PM