Picking Berries

Picking raspberries each summer has become an annual tradition ever since my first trip to a raspberry farm when we lived in Wisconsin.  Although raspberries are my favorite fruit, their presence in my life up until that point was quite sparse.  I remember how giddy I was the first time I saw fields of raspberry bushes in Wisconsin!  And every bush was truly loaded with berries!  Since then, every summer I have picked berries and made jam.  I have picked berries with all three of my youngest kidlets on my back when they were babies.  Even last year, when I was just recovering from Squirmy’s C-section, I managed, albeit with a bit of pain, to get myself to the raspberry patch to pick a few buckets of berries.  It provided a much needed respite from my colic-ridden baby and some desperately needed by myself time last summer.  I’m so fortunate to live only a couple of miles from a wonderful raspberry farm just up the road.  The people who own the farm and work there are so nice every year.  I love going there.

Raspberries are currently in their prime, which means that I have been spending a lot of time at the raspberry farm picking and picking picking.  Several kidlets and I picked on Monday morning.  We went back Wednesday morning.  And yesterday I had the privilege of spending three hours picking all by myself.  Ahhh!  We’ve eaten raspberries, frozen raspberries, made jam, made amazing homemade raspberry ice cream, made more jam, and eaten more raspberries.  On Saturday I also picked a bucket of black currants, which was a new experience.   You can eat a black currant right off the bush, but they aren’t terribly tasty alone and fresh.  They are more of a cooking/jam making berry.  I made three batches of black currant jam last night, and let me tell you it was truly amazing stuff.

I don’t get to go many places all by myself these days, and really, I life a sheltered life, mostly running into the same sorts of people when I do go out.  Usually I am too busy herding my children to really take notice of the people that I meet when I am out and about, so when I’m out alone, it is highly entertaining and very enlightening to me to people watch.  The part of me that would really like to write books just loves to people watch and fill in all the blanks with my imagination.

Picking raspberries is a somewhat mindless task.  It’s peaceful and calm, but doesn’t take a lot of brain power.  It’s a great activity to sort out what’s swirling around in your head and refresh your personality.  It is also makes for some great people watching:

• There was an old, white haired, well dressed lady across the row from me who spent a great deal of time talking to her son in Switzerland on her cell phone.  After she hung up she spent quite a long time retelling her husband the conversation she just had and her opinion about all sorts of things in her son’s life.
• There were two tired middle aged sisters across the way.  One of them had been up waiting all night for her husband to come home, only to discover that he was already home and sleeping on the couch downstairs.  To make matters more frustrating, the dog woke her up at the crack of dawn, and her husband was still at home sleeping.  Plus, picking raspberries was hard work, and she didn’t intend on sharing any of her berries with anyone else . . . not her family or her friends.  And weren’t there more ripe berries last year?
• There was the giggling group of old women on a Saturday morning outing together behind me, who had enough berries, but just couldn’t stop picking and eating them  . . . so delicious!  Can you believe thee were so many berries on the bushes?
• There was the bubbly college girl working at the raspberry farm, showing everyone which row to pick and where to put the flag markers when they were done picking, saying the same thing over and over and over and over in the most pleasant, happy voice, and not even getting upset when certain people completely disregarded all of her instructions.
• There were the two women (who I think probably had some mental issues, to be truthful) picking willy nilly on whatever row they felt like picking on, loudly (but not being obtrusive) praising God for creating the wonderful raspberries!  The beautiful overcast morning!  I loved it, because those exquisite little raspberries are a work of art.  We should all be grateful for them, and I do love a nice overcast day as well.
• There were the teenage raspberry farm workers who have been there years, and get a little older, a little wise every year, but are always so kind and helpful.

It was interesting to see the difference in raspberry pickers on Saturday compared to the weekday mornings we were at the farm.  During the week, there were lots of moms with lots of kids.  The kids were driving the moms crazy.  My kids were driving me crazy too.  ( Mr. SP is one hardcore raspberry picker.  His big sister . . . not so much.  In her own words, she’d rather eat the berries than pick them.  In fact, she’d rather have me pick them and then she’d be happy to eat them.  I gave up and had her entertain Squirmy while I picked).  On Saturday, there were more adults picking with their spouses or friends.

Because he had fallen asleep for a good part of the afternoon yesterday, Mr. SP got to stay up late to help me make jam.  By himself, he’s really quite helpful in the kitchen, and he was happy to do some stirring for me as I cooked the black currant jam.  He chatted away and told me all sorts of great things, happy to have my undivided attention all to himself.  Because I owed him the few last chapters of a chapter book we had been reading out loud, I stirred jam with one hand and held the book in the other and read till the end of the book.  That’s pretty good multitasking for me, because I really don’t multitask well anywhere, especially in the kitchen.