Reflections - Buck, Boom, and Berries

Wild Black Raspberries Ripening

I didn’t want Spence’s offering. When we’d passed the wild black raspberries on one of our health walks, I told him, “Don’t pick them. Let the birds eat them.” But July 4, he interrupted the Flash Point board game I was playing with our son Charlie. Spence held out a plastic pint container with half a cup of berries he had picked, one by one, for me.

“The birds ate some. Lots more are ripening.” He applied his mind reading talents and answered my unspoken question. “You can make pie or sorbet.”

Summoning my manners, I reached for the container with the rolling black raspberries. “Thanks.” I appreciated his kindness and the time he took picking the berries. Though I loved both black raspberry pie and sorbet, I wouldn’t make any.

In a discussion about avoiding statins—because all the types my mom’s doctor prescribed made her want to die, and because my sister could only tolerate a very expensive type—I had asked my nurse practitioner Deb, “Is it okay to eat dessert? I like cookies and pie. I don’t have any other vices.”

Deb studied her fingers for a while before answering. “You could have one small cookie or small piece of pie,” she held her fingers to indicate a sliver, “once or twice a week.”

Bad news. That would tempt me to eat far more sugary sweets. Since January, I’ve gone without dessert—gobbling dry fruit after dinner instead. My cholesterol numbers improved by April, pleasing Deb. But she said, “Your numbers go up and down. I want to check you in October.”

Sorbet and pie weren’t options. Spence hadn’t picked enough berries anyway.

After finishing the game with Charlie—rescuing six people and a cat while keeping the game’s faux fire under control—I rinsed the berries. They tempted me. I plucked a berry and popped it into my mouth. Warm, semi-sweet juice trickled over my tongue. Eating another five, I confessed to Spence. “I probably shouldn’t eat any more. Seeds don’t agree with my digestion.”

His mustache scrunched. “You could make juice.”

Homemade juice would be healthier than sugar-sweetened juice from a store. And Wells Wood berry juice would make a special dessert for the holiday . . . if I could convince myself into believing that con by the time I’d prepared the drink.

After dinner, when Spence and his cat-buddy Rills napped on the sofa, I eyed the berries. Too few for the blender, and I didn't want to squish them through the sieve we use to drain coffee grounds in case the coffee left its flavor on the metal. Instead, I mashed the berries in a bowl with a fork.

Juice didn't separate from the seeds. Mushy pulp formed and stained the bowl purple. No worries. I would strain the juice. Not waking Spence to ask where he stored the cheese cloth, I grabbed a clean, but old, white sock and spooned a bit of pulp inside. I squeezed. My fingertips turned red. Juice dribbled out. I spooned the rest of the mush in, squeezed, and a tablespoon of precious liquid dripped into a porcelain tea bag saucer.

 

Black Raspberry Juice in Tea Bag Saucer

Tossing the sock into the garbage, I washed my hands, raised the saucer, and—

BOOM!

Rills dove off the sofa and scampered around the great room with his bristling tail straight up. He stopped to stare at the door.

Spence sat. “It’s okay, Rillzie.”

I lowered the saucer. “That cannon sounded closer than before, Spence.”

He shrugged, pounded his pillow, and lay down again.

Two neighbors have calcium carbide cannons—Matt, our auto mechanic, lives atop the hill to the north, and Daryl, our tractor mechanic, lives atop the hill to the south. One must have tested their cannon in preparation for a family-and-friend firework show later that evening.

Rills gave up on the boom, left the door, and descended the stairs to the basement.

Lifting the saucer, I sipped the juice. Semi-sweet, intense, berry syrup electrified my tongue. A second batch could be thinned.

The next evening after dinner, Spence and Rills lounged on the sofa again. 

With no wild raspberries to squeeze, I splashed dishwater and gazed through the kitchen window at the north garden.

A buck sauntered to the blueberry cage—still uncovered because I’d procrastinated. After all my weeding, mulching, and covering last year, climate change ruined the crop anyway. I didn't want to work in vain this year. The buck stopped at the cage as if by a lunch counter, stretched his head through the gap between the chicken wire and the overhead PVC frame to munch on the blueberry bush laden with green berries.

Remembering the taste of fresh picked blueberries—seedless berries I could eat and berries that took hours and hours of labor to cultivate in the garden, not just pick from the wild—my anger let loose. I grumbled, “You cheeky devil,” but felt more anger at myself for not putting up the row cover cloth. Stomping outside to the top of the porch steps, I yelled in my stern teacher voice, “Get out of my blueberries.”

The buck stared at me then calmly bit off another mouthful of bush.

“Didn’t you hear me?” I stamped my feet and waved my arms. “Leave my blueberries alone!”

The buck didn’t even look. He continued munching tasty shoots as he probably had on many evenings when I hadn’t been looking out the window.

If only Daryl or Matt would shoot off the cannon again, but women don’t have to rely on a man rescuing a damsel in distress. I reached to my toes for increased volume and bellowed, “SCRAM, YOU IDIOT!”

The buck jerked his head out of the cage. Spinning around, he dashed for the woods—his white tail up.

I’d learned my lesson. Nature cooperated with wild raspberries this season. If we got more rain to nourish the blueberry bushes that grew taller than me, those berries might ripen rather than wither. I needed to get off my duff and cover the cages. That buck, not to mention his relatives and birds nesting nearby, would be back. Blueberries called to their bellies as much as they called to mine. 

Blueberries Ripening