Friday, July 11, 2008

Hunting Blueberries

Yesterday I put on my red rubber clogs and crossed the dirt road to my brother's property. Actually I didn't want the cats to follow me so I walked through Mom's fields and down, through very tall weeds, prayed I wouldn't step in some animal's home, fell. Finally reached the dirt road.

On the way to the blueberry bushes I saw this abandoned picnic table in my brother's yard, overgrown with weeds. The table once belonged to my parents. There is also a barbecue grill, a couch torn into two sections and an old pick up truck tossed in the yard among the weeds. Did I know my brother was this sort of person? No. Guess I'm coming to know the family for real and not some imagined picture.

My brother's back 40. Well, not quite that large but pretty nice.

Through the years he has planted maybe 20 apple trees. The grove is sort of magical, mystical. A place a child would love to play or at least the child I was would have liked to play.

The berries are abundant but not yet ripe. The bushes are in the shade. I'll return soon. Yum.

26 comments:

Andrea and Kim said...

Oh Suki!

This sounds like fun to be able to pick berries...yummy. A few years ago, when Elizabeth interned in publishing, she brought me a book about Berries! Oh, it is lovely!

When these ripen, will you make pies?

Thanks for sharing your adventure with us, today!

Have a Beautiful Weekend!

Anonymous said...

Mmmmm, blueberry pie, blueberry cupcakes, blueberries with vanilla cream.....plain blueberries.

Cris, Artist in Oregon said...

How funny that our blueberries are ripe and being eaten and our black berries are still green. I took a batch of blueberries we bought and froze most of them on a cookie sheet then popped them into a freezer bag to have with yogurt and oatmeal. I love frozen blueberries and they last longer. Pop some into a vanilla yogurt and it is nice and cold and icy. very refreshing.
Does one ever know another person? Maybe he had no where to take the car parts? Is the picnic table salvagable?

Cris, Artist in Oregon said...

Oh and everything looks so lush and green there now. We are starting to dry out here due to no rain for awhile. Which is typical for us.

Anonymous said...

I love the grove! It does look magical. Thanks for taking us with you :-).

sukipoet said...

My dad loved berries. Well, I do too. A blueberry pie. That does sound good, maybe I will make one. They are selling blueberries for from $3.50 a pint to 4.75 a pint around here.

Britt-arnhild all those blueberry treats sound good. Muffins esp. a favorite of mine.

Cris, when I got the strawberries, mom cut them up and sprinkled sugar over them and froze them. I don't like them doused in syrup. But know nothing about freezing fruit. So thanks for the blueberry freezing tip. Just plain.

Cris, it rains almost every day which is why everything is green. I havent had to water the garden for weeks. All the items buried under grasses are rotting except apparently the truck which he said someone offered hum $75 for but he doesnt want to sell. I myself would be thrilled to get money for someone to take away what looks to me like a piece of junk, but my brother is very different from me re: possessions.

Annie, come meet me there for tea and blueberry cakes. !

Umā said...

j and i have a tradition of going to a pick-your-own blueberry farm nearby and stocking up on berries which we then freeze for the winter. then he makes us pancakes every sunday, and we go through about 20lbs of blueberries from one summer to the next. like cris, i freeze them on cookie sheets before bagging them up.

we used to net our one blueberry bush, until we had to free a robin from the netting. he was ok and flew off (after biting j, which i can't blame him for), but we felt horrible. now we just share.

sukipoet said...

Well, I never heard about that method of freezing but I understand. That way they don't mush into each other. That sure is a lot of blueberries!!! I'll try out the freezing method. My brother doesn't net his, but my grandma used to do that. Take care, Suki

Sandpiper (Lin) said...

Oh yummy! I love to go blueberry picking!

San said...

Suki, you've made me remember my own childhood. For a short while my parents owned a very small apple orchard. Yes, it was mystical. In particular I remember a lovely day I spent there with my grandmother. A very unusual day.

The promise of fresh blueberries right off the bush--I envy you!

sukipoet said...

Sandpiper, on Cape cod the local organic farmer had acres of blueberry bushes which I loved to pick.

San, how neat to have that special memory of the apple orchard and your gram. There is a wonderful book called "The Orchard," non-fiction written by a woman in the depression who tried to keep an apple orchard going. The woman who wrote it died, the book was unpublished. But a relative found it and got it published. I love the book.

~Babs said...

That apple orchard looks just the place I'd have been as a kid.They were also good climbing trees, best I recall.
Blueberries are probably my least favorite berry,,,,but that's okay, as I bought fresh blackberries from the grocery the other day, and would have had to take out a loan to pay for both. Lucky you to have them right there for the picking! I don't think blueberries grow here, but we used to pick blackberries when I was a kid. OH, the chiggers! Do you have chiggers there?
(glad you weren't injured when you fell)

Katiejane said...

The apple grove sounds and looks JUST like the kind of place I wanted to be as a kid, or even now.

Families are surprising. Mine seems to surprise me with each passing year!

And aren't those your ruby slippers? Make a wish!

Anonymous said...

Suki, Not sure how I found your site but I enjoy your open spirited personality. The pictures of your countryside are beautiful...so green! I am an artist and new at blogging and invite you to visit my site.
Mary Ann

Blue Sky Dreaming said...

Suki, I forgot to leave my url. Mary Ann

patti said...

Your post has inspired me to make a painting of that magical apple grove. Beautiful!

soulbrush said...

ha ha i love da clogs! what space! a dream come true. somewhere to really just 'be' !sigh....

sukipoet said...

Babs, thanks for commenting on the fall. It was hard to see the lay of the land due to the tall grasses and quite startling to fall but i was fine, just a tiny person there amongst the tall, tall weeds. Glad you indulged in the blackberries, esp after all this talk about them you must have been salivating. I'm not sure what chiggers are? Just little knats? I am not bothered much by bugs and other flying things. I just ignore them. But we do have black flies up here in the spring and mosquitoes.

Katie Jane i do love that idea of my red clogs being my RUBY SLIPPERS. Now they seem enchanted. Ok, what'll I wish for.

blue sky dreaming, what a great name. Thanks for stopping by my blog and I'll stop by yours soon. Wow, my heart expands to read your words "open spirited personality." I guess that's just what i wish to be so interesting that it sounds like that's what I am.

Patti, I am touched that you are inspired by the apple grove. Will await seeing the painting that arises from you magical brushes from that!

FY I guess, now that I've stopped rebelling about having to be here, I see that this space is calming to me and helping me transit from one thing to another. Not sure TO what yet but something. Except, I do hold dread in my heart re: winter.

Umā said...

suki, in winter you can participate in my "winter blues week" which i suspect will be an annual week of posting all things blue on secret notebooks to relieve winter doldrums (or at least try).

Lynn Cohen said...

love the berry hunt, hope you didn't hurt yourself on that fall, love the bright red shoes...and yes, his land is grand.

sukipoet said...

m. heart, yes I think you have a lot of snow and cold in your area too, maybe a tad less than up here. I'd love to participate in the winter blues week. That sounds like such fun. I'll look forward to it.

Lynn, I have fallen twice recently, the second time trying on a shoe, standing up of course one legged, at a yard sale. I hope I don't have that syndrom SIL has where she kept falling. Neither time did I get hurt. In fact Mom fell a couple days ago and by blessed miracle she did not get hurt either.

human being said...

what a walk... thanks for taking us...
i love to play in that magical grove...
;)

Anonymous said...

I would love to play in there!

sukipoet said...

human being and Chewy, I walked back into the grove last evening. It is so peaceful. I dont see any apples growing though. And I disturbed a bunch of turkeys but I'll post about that. I think.

marianne said...

Hi Suki,
Thanks for taking me along on one of your adventures!
The ruines of childhood memories.
The aplle trees, yes I would have loved to play there!
My blueberries aren't ripe either.....
Hug >M<

sukipoet said...

Marianne, you have blueberries too. How many acres do you live on ???? Maybe we will be eating blueberries at the same time.