The thing about living on our lane is that you spend a portion of the summer with purple hands. Part of our beautiful road is lined with the most luscious wild blackberries that you have ever tasted. And as soon as the they come ripe... "Let the games begin!"
You only have a small window of time that the berries are ripe for the pick'in. Too early and they are seriously sour. Too late and they dry up or get eaten by the birds. So, when the time is right, it is a mandatory family activity to pick for as many nights as we can until we can't take it any longer... until our arms and hands are scratched and stinging from the thorny vines protecting the berries.
Yeah, wild blackberry vines make you pay dearly.
Each night we don our rubber boots, load the berry boards into the landscape cart, get our bucket and hit the road. The berry boards are long boards ( like 2"x12"x8') that we can stand on. You toss one end into the vines then walk like you are walking the plank of a pirate ship up into the berries. Got'cha!
My favorite time to pick berries is at dusk. Tonight as we picked in silence - a rarity- you could hear the horses in the pasture on the other side of the berries. You could hear their hoof beats as they goofed around, bucking and playing in the evening breeze. You could hear the crickets tune up and begin their night music. Dogs barking in the distance. Oak leaves rustling overhead.
Peaceful.
Peace and purple hands...
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