America's favorite pastime

Success. It was hot yesterday about 88 F, but I threw on a welding shirt, long pants and boots, strapped on a bear pistol (I have encountered them before picking berries here. They love eating berries too. I leave them alone, and so far they leave me alone, but one should be prepared for bad days. Noting almost every critter on my place loves eating berries, from fox and deer to birds and bears, so it is a race to see who gets to them first, me or them) grabbed a hat, leather gloves, a canteen and a clean 27 ounce coffee can) and I waded into the raspberry bushes.

It truly is one of America's favorite pastimes for many I think. It is just a shame so many get to do it so rarely.

These berries, being of the black raspberry kind, v. the commercially raised ones sold in many stores, are not yet ripe.



These berries are ready and calling you to come get them.



I have it down to a science I think. I taste sample from each new plant. If it isn't sweet, I usually just go to the next plant. Variations in soil and sunlight produce different sugar levels. Also different sizes of berries. I usually just hold the pail under the cluster and lightly stroke the cluster with my thumb. Truly ripe ones virtually leap off into the pail. Yes, sometimes they miss the pail and go to the ground. No matter. A new berry bush will come of that next year. I usually don't actually wear the leather gloves. Rather I just hold one and use it like I would a pot holder on a hot frying pan, to pull back the thorny branches so I can reach the fruit. Some of the older raspberry bushes have thorns almost an inch long. When one thinks they have picked a bush clean, the thing to do is walk around to the back side of that bush. Often you will spy another hundred berries you just couldn't see from the front.

I finished the cluster of bushes I was playing in, then wandered around a while and found another huge cluster. The second cluster was frayed around the edges with obvious indications the deer had found it, but as with the other one, the plants one to five feet inside the cluster of bushes were untouched. So, sheathed in my heavy clothes, I waded in again and ignored the sound of thorns grasping at the thick clothes.

Of course during this process I ate almost as many (if not more than) berries as I picked. That's always a problem here. I have the same problem with the wild asparagus if I can catch it at the young shoot stage. Later on this month I will (now that some areas are mowed) go check out the places where the wild strawberries grow. I find mowing the area so more sunlight reaches them encourages them to grow much sweeter.

Eventually of course, in that heat, my canteen ran out of water, so since I had a good load I returned home. Taking a different route home I saw several other berry clusters and I am expecting to see some fat deer this fall. :)

This can is about half full. I got over a pound of black raspberries before the deer, birds, et al did.



Only after I returned home with my treats did I remember most of the traditional uses for raspberries and the other fruit growing here are now closed to me. No more raspberry pie. No more raspberry wine or raspberry brandy. So I put them in my refrigerator while I pondered this new problem. Truly, old habits die hard, raspberry pie with a good syrup (yum) and a few Mason jars of fresh home distilled raspberry brandy, is what I was thinking about when I went out.

Yes, of course today I threw several handfuls into my Cheerios. The good news for diabetics is according to online sources a full cup of the black raspberries is only 10 grams of carbohydrates. Three guesses as to what I am nibbling on now as I write this..