Friday Morning Muse

Gary Boyd

Around these parts most of our ripened fruit happened a month or better ago. The only thing  still to come are the pecans in the fall. Even so the following resonates…

The Suburban Life – Thinking Ahead – Editorial – NYTimes.com
It’s a good year for blueberries.

Decades ago, a farmer planted more than a dozen bushes on a slope behind our house, picking the spot where the soil would drain with a deliberation that is beyond me.

This year may give the best harvest yet. The plants are thriving despite our neglect. The wet spring gave the bushes the water we never bother to provide.

I spend some time each year wandering the woods behind our place where I tank the birds more than any long gone farmer. Between the dewberries and the mulberries, the honeysuckle and the trumpet vine, the legustrum and the prairie rose the sights, smells and tastes are all sweet. Some years I don’t beat the birds to the mulberries which just makes the ones that come in the following year that much sweeter. Sadly, very sadly, we don’t have blueberries in this bit of woods. It is only on our trips to the Blue Ridge Mountains that I have had the pleasure of picking fresh from the bush “wild” blueberries, planted by some long forgotten soul who shall be ever blessed for their foresight…

The dewberries of late April are numerous and usually large and tastey. An afternoon in the hot sun, getting scratched on the hands and arms to pick a gallon or so of the big black berries bursting with juice is only hard on the back. I will admit that for every four berries that go into the bucket, one goes into my mouth…On a good day. On a bad day I might not make it back to the house with more than a cup…and a full stomach.

Even the figs of summer have already ripened and gone this mid summer. In the farm fields around our county the corn has all been harvested, the sorgum is in already, the rice looks about ready to be cut, and from the roads on the way home from work each day it looks like a good crop of soybeans is on the way for a fall harvest. The soybeans look to have benn planted in the last month only.

I guess where this meandering romp is leading is to quoting the final line of the NY Times Editorial above…

It makes me wonder what I will leave for the next person. But for now, the blueberries are tangible proof of the wisdom of thinking ahead. They also taste good.

Here’s to good taste…In all things.

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