Foraging for Dessert

Like so many others in this region which I'm blessed to call home, I have my very own sprawl of wild blackberry bushes.  They are, in turn, beautiful, annoying, persistant, fruitful and free.  They require no care, no special fertilizer or watering regimen.  They grow, blossom, thrive and bring forth their luscious fruit all on their own.  Now, this is my kind of plant!  Where human beings thrive under my TLC and sometimes find a new lease on life, any plant left to my mercy will surely sicken and die.  I do not have the much coveted "green thumb".  I can keep a cactus going; that's about it.  But I digress.

I don't eat dessert very often, hardly ever.  During the summer months, however, when the blackberry bushes are heavily laden with fruit, I love to go out and pluck my dessert directly from the bush and eat it then and there.  This is fun to do while I'm watering the front and back lawns.  (And I use the term "lawns" loosely.  If it's green, I'll water it!)

Nobody else in my family pays much attention to the blackberries on the side of the house.  My son has long since outgrown the thrill of finding a snack on his own to eat in the great outdoors.  These days his reaction consists mostly of cursing under his breath if his arms or bare legs get caught by the thorn-filled vines as he pushes the lawnmower from the back of the house to the front.  The other day I introduced my four-year old granddaughter to the blackberry bushes, offered her a couple of berries and she was suitably impressed.  They taste so wonderful with the warmth of the sun still on them.  Of course she wanted to pick her own but the problem with that is even if the berries look completely black and ready to pick, they're only ready if they come off with the merest tug.  If you have to pull, they're not ready and you just end up with a purple-stained hand very quickly.

For some reason the blackberry crop is extremely abundant this year and early in arriving.  Every growing thing around here has come up early.  I think this must be due to the week of very hot temperatures we experienced way back in March.  No frost ever came after that week of heat either.  I'm no master gardener but this makes sense to me.

As I work my way along the length of the blackberry bushes, stuffing my face all the while, I sometimes think to myself, "I should make a pie or a tart or something with all these berries" but I never seem to turn these thoughts into reality.  You see, if I did this, the blackberry bushes would turn into work and cease to be fun.  Perhaps one of these days I'll stop being so selfish and surprise my dear husband with some sort of blackberry creation!