The Hunt for Blackberries

What is it that calls us to the woods and beckons us to come? Why would you EVER go through all this for a bucketful or two of berries?

It's hot and the woods makes everyone itchy. I don't know if we'll ever learn to get up early rather than wait until midday to pick although evening is a nice time of the day, too.

Sometimes we search and search only to find ONE nice berry on which we thought we'd find a whole cluster. The others were overipe. We feed some to the dog. And we keep on.

We stomp through tall weeds and branches, create all sorts of little paths, stoop our backs to duck under briars, reach further in the prickly brush, the scratches on our arms and legs shooting pain through our bodies.

And yet we keep on........

We wish we had a pin or needle to pull out the little splinter that stays sticking in the flesh. It throbs whenever we hit that spot.

OUCH! Someone gets stung with a bee and we rush to find plantain which we chew, tasting the nasty plant OR else rub it together and scrunch it to get the juices flowing. The plantain brings healing, drawing out the poison of the sting.

We're hot and thirsty. We rest in the shade for a few minutes, relishing the cooler air and very thankful that we dragged a water jug along.

We continue picking.......

We walk through poison ivy, hoping we won't react to the oil in the plant. Hopefully the cold rinse when we get back will take care of that.

The fly is so pesty, relishing the blood from the scratches received. We try to coax it away but it keeps coming back.

The ants on the berries bite if we don't shake them off before picking.

We hope against hope we don't encounter a snake. So far we've not seen one so we don't want to borrow trouble. Yet we are always on the lookout, for after all, we are in the woods and must stay alert for any sign of danger.

We get sidetracked, following the route where the deer have made a regular path to the little creek. We find a few berries on the way. But mostly, we needed a slight diversion.

We hear the wood crack and JUMP, wondering what in the world that was. Everything stays silent so we have only to guess it may have been a deer and a small mammal. We'll never know.

The younger ones complain, asking if we'll never get finished.

We get back to the house, eat lunch, wash and measure the berries and discover we need 2 more quarts. We all head back out. The younger ones keep asking when we have the amount we need. They are troopers, enduring all the work and pain.

WHY do we do this?

Aside from all the health benefits, we relish the flavor of the blackberries.

We wash the berries over and over, making sure no little ant or gnat stays intact. We pull a maggot from a berry even though we were SURE we did a thorough job of washing.

We can the berries and eat them with plain yogurt and granola. We use this recipe:

Pie filling

3 ½ cups sugar

1 ½ cups instant clear jell

1 teaspoon salt

8 cups water or fruit juice

¼ cup lemon juice

7 quarts fruit, any kind

Mix sugar, clear jell, and salt. Rub into fruit. Add water and lemon juice. Mix well. Pack into sterilized jars and seal. Process 18 minutes with water bath method. Yield: 8-9 quarts

We take a shower, washing away the sweat while the water stings our scratches even though we've had a small shower while picking with the rain the Lord gave us.  

Despite the small hardships or rather inconveniences of the hunt of the blackberries, somehow, someway we do it again and again!!!

And in the winter when we delight in the taste of the wild homemade goodness, we never give one thought of all the sweat we wiped and insects we've brushed aside.

But one thing we do is thank the Lord for the blessings of eating blackberries.