Grandad would come get me in his little orange Datsun pickup truck early in the day but not too early. Sometimes my sister would come too but I don’t remember her liking berry picking as much as I did.
The dew had dried on the grass but the sun wasn’t high. We didn’t want to bake while picking but we didn’t want to get soaked either by wet bushes.
He would have all his best berry picking baskets, which were stored in the woodshed all winter just waiting for summer. There was Hank Snow, Patsy Cline, or Johnny Cash on the 8 track tape player. My favorite part of those drives was changing the tape-shuffling the playlist very old school style.
We would head to the back dirt roads of Clyde usually where all the old homesteads used to be. Picking spots clean and then moving on to another spot where there was “good picking”.
We were “foraging” and “eating seasonally” but we never called it that-we were just living how people had always lived.
By early afternoon, we would head for home. Me, with my belly full and basket half full, and him with his baskets overflowing. Grammie would have a crust all made and chilling ready to roll out to make us a pie for after supper.
For breakfast the next morning and all the mornings till they were gone, I would have a small bowl of blueberries chilled,covered in creamy milk from the cow and sprinkled with a bit of sugar. I would lift my bowl and slurp down joyfully the sweet, blue milk left behind after every last berry had been caught with my spoon.
Love,
Jenn xx