Over
the past few years, my family has a built a respectable list of secret and
not-so-secret berry stashes: a thick patch of blueberries hidden amid the tangled
brush of the southeast field, swaths of thorny blackberry bushes growing
through the old apple orchard, and clusters of wild raspberries woven along the
tumbledown, fern-ensconced stone wall at the far edge of the front yard.
If
one berry spot is lacking, we move on hopefully to the next – the roadside pick
where we found the blueberries my youngest was ready to devour last week, or
the patch of raspberry bushes at the corner of our road, or the blackberry
brambles at the edge of the woods in the front field. So far, our best crop
this summer has been the raspberries growing through the thick hedge of rosa
rugosa along the curve of our driveway.
“Berries!”
called the littlest one (again) as we drove out one morning. I brushed off her claim
at first, figuring she must have seen the rusty swell of rosehips within the prickly
foliage. But she was persistent (as she often is), so I threw the minivan into
reverse to check it out. Sure enough, the first pinky-red raspberries of the
summer hung there amid the thorny rosebushes like tiny treasures. I picked the
few I could reach and divvied them up between us.
That
was weeks ago, and my daughter continues to visit that spot several times each
day, reaching through the double thorns of rose bushes and raspberry canes for each sweet
prize, and beseeching the taller members of the family to pluck the berries that
hang tantalizingly just beyond her reach.
I
spent many a girlhood afternoon myself, once upon a time, scrambling through
brambles to reach the berries that grew along the road near home. The scratches
along bare arms and legs were a small price for the simple pleasure of wild
berries eaten on the spot or saved for breakfast the next morning.
During
college, I spent a summer in Ireland, studying history and literature and
traveling around. While musing and wandering one day along a quiet lane just
outside the village that had been home to my great-grandparents, I made the
happy discovery of big, juicy blackberries growing in the roadside hedge. Their
sun-warmed sweetness and the casual waves of passing strangers reminded me of
home.
This
summer, too, we have managed to find wild berries in our travels. During a
visit with friends in Maine, we picked our way through some of that state’s
famous wild blueberry bushes, located conveniently off the back porch. What the
littlest one did not eat by the handful, we saved for breakfast the next
morning. On our annual trek to Cape Cod, we discovered a small patch of
blackberries just down the road from where we were staying. My children
exclaimed at the find and spent 10 happy minutes plucking a colander full of plump
berries, enough to last the week.
Closer to home, my children and husband and I keep watch on the berries each summer,
looking first for the blossoms, then the bumpy green of unripe berries, and
finally the succulence of the tiny, tasty treasures we’ve waited for. Then we
set to picking.
While
the kids prefer to grab blackberries and raspberries on the fly, before moving
on to one of summer’s other distractions, my favorite to pick are the
blueberries, tiny and low to the ground – and thornless. It is something like
meditative therapy to crouch down in a quiet field and mindlessly plop small
berries into a pail until it is full.
Each
summer we bake our cache of wild berries into crumbles and muffins, blend them
into smoothies, condense them into jam, pour them over pancakes, and package
the leftovers neatly into the freezer for later. By far the best way to eat a
wild berry, though, is fresh off the bush or the vine, juicy with sunshine,
brimming with the sweetness of summer and good memories of past berry picking
adventures.
Original content by Meghan McCarthyMcPhaul, posted to her Blog: Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears in the August 8, 2014 edition of the Littleton Record.
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