Tag: blueberry picking

Sa’day’s Theme Music

Talk around the coffee table yesterday was that everyone wants to go see Asteroid City. Terrific cast. Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Tom Hanks. If you’re a Wes fan, critics suggest you’ll like the film. If you’re not his fan, you might want to pass. We are his fans, so we might go. The subject is in the air. Don’t know where the currents will take it.

It’s Sa’day, July 8, 2023. Lots of room left in July at this point. Summer has slowed for us here in Ashlandia, where the day gets hot and the nights get cool. 66 F now, we’re expecting 92 around our homestead by mid-aft. I miss the annual blueberry pickin’. It would’ve already been done, and we’d have pints of fresh blueberries in frig and freezer. Some baking would’ve been done. But the drought and wildfire smoke killed it two years ago. Too hot, too dry, then too smoky. All conspired to take production down. Bushes died, and COVID took the heart out of it for the folks running it. Gone are those 6:30 arrivals at the gate, sipping hot coffee in cold mountain air as the sun pulls itself clear of the mountains and turns on the heat. Gone is the cold feel of wet berries in your fingers and the hunt down the rows for a bush that speaks to you. Gone is the hushed laughing and gossiping, more expected in a church than in a field picking berries, but all seemed to approach it as a solemn event. Well, almost all. There seemed to be one each year who had to be talking loudly on their cell phone while picking berries.

Thinking of those things reminded me of “My City Was Gone” by The Pretenders. Released in 1982, it’s about change. I’d been discussing change with others on a previous evening. I’ve seen change in Ashlandia, a shift in priorities, the decline of traditional events, the rise of doings that don’t matter to us. Our connections with the city and area are loose and breaking. We’re drifting away from it and no longer feel like we’re a part of it. Not as we were before.

I thought of Mom’s place in Penn Hills, PA, after that conversation. Her place has changed through the years, certainly. New siding, porches replaced, etc. Yeah, those physical changes took place, but its essence has remained steadfast. That’s what disillusions us with Ashlandia: its essence seems to be changing. Anyway, Les Neurons wedged “My City Was Gone” into the morning mental music stream, so here we are.

Well, stay pos, and muster the courage and strength to do it again. I’m building my energy to get out there with a strong dose of coffee. It’s what’s for breakfast, along with oatmeal. Here’s the music, and awaaayyy we gooo.

Cheers

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Pickin’ and Grinnin’

Why would you have sex with a chain-link fence? 

I didn’t understand it. I couldn’t see how a man would do it, and I didn’t understand the attraction. I later learned the man was drunk, and thought the sex was a female.

That’s the thing with picking fruit: you have time to think.

blackberries

h/t to Fables and Flora for the photo

Information was exchanged yesterday that the blackberries were looking good, and there were a lot. We were welcome to come and pick. We took up the offer this morning, driving the short distance to the property on the border between Talent and Phoenix.

As mornings go, it was normal, and glorious with sunshine, blue skies, and budding clouds. Summer’s heat had withdrawn to re-organize and energize, so the air was a comfortable seventy degrees. Most of the area’s wildfire smoke had hitched a ride out of the valley on the wind.

I’d heard about the sex with the chain-link fence on the radio during the drive. Neighbors had it on video. Seeing the video isn’t on my bucket list.

Starting out your berry picking is about looking around to find a ripe offering, sampling them to confirm your visual assessment, and then embracing the mechanics. Like blueberries, the key is color, and its easy release. If the berry is ready to be picked there’s no effort. Just a slight tug, and it rolls off the bush and into your hand. If they don’t come off like this, the product is likely to be sour.

Differences arise between blackberries and blueberries. While I enjoy their sweet juiciness, the largest difference from a picking point of view is that blackberries are in thorny brambles. There are many gorgeous gems hanging there, but getting to them is challenging without sacrificing some blood. Unlike my wife, I’m not a person willing to reach for a berry too far. That’s probably why she’s a better picker than me, collecting about one hundred and fifty percent of the produce that I acquire in the same period.

I’m not jealous; she’s just a better picker. Besides, once we get home, they belong to us, and are shared.

Shouting, “You’ll never take me alive, picking man,” the blackberries sometimes leap to freedom as I approached. The blueberries do it the same, so I don’t take it personally.

Unfortunately, some strange streams empty into this vacant space of thoughts. We had three television stations in southern West Virginia, where I went to high school for my final three years. All three stations featured a show called “Hee Haw.” It may be my imagination, but “Hee Haw” seemed to be on thirty hours a day.

“Hee Haw” was a syndicated variety show that featured country and western music, buxom women, and corny puns and jokes. Roy Clark and Buck Owens were the show’s hosts. One segment was called, “Pickin’ and Grinnin’.” Naturally, out there, my mind invited the segment in: “I’m a pickin’,” Roy or Buck would say, and the other would reply, “And I’m a grinnin’.” Then they’d play some music, stopping for a joke before resuming. They’d do this three or four times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoIEMXGT124

My mind mercifully cut the stream off after a while. Thereafter, I turned resources toward scenes I was contemplating, character development, and pacing and plotting.

It was a short pick, about an hour. We ended up with twelve pints. Of course, it was the year’s second pick, so we’ll freeze them, and be set for at least a few months.

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Blueberry Picking

I’m excited, I’ll admit. Love fruit, and blueberries top my list. We have a local place where we pick organic blueberries and buy them for two dollars a pound.

It’s just outside the town’s southside, a ten minute drive. A hot cuppa coffee in hand, we leave about 6:30, me, my wife, and our neighbor, Barb. Barb and Walt introduced us to this habit about eight years ago, I guess. I have photos of the first year’s harvest. The morning air reminds us we’re in the mountains, and higher mountains are not far, providing nature’s air conditioning.

Arriving at the gate under the sprawling trees at the end of the dirt road by the creek, we wait for the opening at seven. Our car will probably be tenth in line or so, and we’ll sit, sipping coffee and chatting until the gate opens. When it does, the cars will be motioned forward, one by one, and directed to a parking space on the lawn to the right. Collecting our gear, we’ll move toward the next queue by the bridge over the creek.

Our gear is gallon jugs with cutouts in their tops. Besides it, we have buckets. Strapping them to ourselves with rope, belts or bungee cords, we wear the jugs and pick, then return to the buckets and fill them. We’ll do this for one to two hours on Saturday morning, collecting eight to ten pounds of berries. Affected by the weather, especially the moisture and heat factors, predicting the crop and harvests is difficult. You usually don’t know until you get there.

It’s a meditative practice. Out there with caws crowing, jays arguing, and woodpeckers hammering, the air feels scrubbed pollution free. A church-like ambiance shrouds the activities as the sun slips through and over the trees and mountains. Spotting deer strolling by or eating isn’t uncommon.

Then more people arrive. Children arrive. Daylight grows stronger. The air warms. Chattering rises. I eavesdrop on conversations about office politics, vacation plans, family updates, pending weddings, and ‘whatever happened to’ updates. I do a lot of thinking and some writing in my head.

About sixty people will be on the field by the time we leave, with others coming and going. It’s still meditative, reflective, picking berries in a swarm of living, on an early Saturday morning, in the mountains.

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