BERRY PICKING

When the summer’s heat was scorching and the
cicadas were attacking our eardrums their fever pitched
buzzing, and the day was all hot and sticky and you sweat even though
you didn’t do anything, mom would decide to go
berry picking. How she loved this task and did right up
to when her body said ‘no more’. She was the cleanest
picker and had no leaves or stems in her pail. We however,
her little brood, didn’t fare so well.
What we’d do first is hunt up old shirts and old neckties,
the shirts to keep us from being all scratched and bitten
by black flies and mosquitoes and the neckties to tie the
pails around our waists so we’d have both hands free for picking.
We also wore floppy-brimmed straw hats to keep us from sunstroke
and we must have looked a right picture of how not to dress.
We didn’t complain much because we loved what mom did
with the berries when we got home.
It was something comical to watch our parade
in clown-like regalia clinking and clanking up the highway to the
spot where mom knew of this bountiful patch of raspberries.
Their long prickly canes were densely growing and hard to
get the berries without getting all scratched, but that didn’t
deter us. One of us would always get a story going round
about bears and the smaller ones would get a little scared so
we’d tell them to make lots of noise to make them go away.
It was hot and thirsty work and we ate as many as we picked,
with the odd warning from mom. Sometimes we’d come
across a wild apple tree and we’d have a few and they
were surprisingly good, also we found some bushes of
long black berries and they were a real treat. Some were
so big they’d fit on the ends of our fingers. After what seemed
like a long time, mom would call a halt to the picking and we’d
start out for home, but not before going to the farm house of
someone she knew and we all got a long cool drink of
spring water. All in all it was a wonderful outing and we
enjoyed the pies and preserves that resulted from our efforts.
It’s a fond and happy memory for us all,
thanks mom.

Margaret Rose Larrivee
May 06, 2007