A Berry Good Day

There is a certain satisfaction that comes from picking your own berries. I think that blueberries are the best berries to pick. The bushes are just the right height, whether you are small or tall. Low branches for children and high branches for adults. There are no thorns or prickers as with raspberries and blackberries. No kneeling down in the hot sun between beds of straw like with strawberries. Apples are OK to pick but then there is always the problem of that perfect apple too high to reach.
Today was a berry picking day. Slowly I drove down the long gravel drive passing rows and rows of blueberry bushes. There were many picking already. Glancing at my watch, I saw it was 9am and the fields had been open for an hour. Sometimes I come and pick berries with friends but today, I would pick by myself. Cars were lined up on both sides of the grassy parking area. I pulled into an empty spot where some other early bird had been and gone already. Hopping out and grabbing only my car keys, I headed towards the white pails lined with plastic bags. The buckets stood neatly in rows outside the wooden hut where pickers weighed their treasure.
“Any place special to pick?” I asked the lady standing in charge of the pails.
“Way down”, she replied, “either side.”
I nodded and smiled, grasping the handle of the empty pail and continuing on towards the rows of bushes I had passed moments before. The morning sun warmed my back as I chose a row to start picking. I hadn’t gone too far to find bushes with plenty of berries. Every time I come the lady says, “go way down” or “farthest rows, end of each row”. I wondered if she always said that.
The ripe berries were clustered, some so large and plentiful the branches of the bushes were hanging long and low. Each berry seemed to scream out, pick me, pick me! The first berries bounced and pinged as I dropped them into the bucket. It was 9:15. How fast can I pick to fill it to the top? Ping, Plop, Ping. I plucked the berries off quickly, filling first my hand, then tossing them into the pail. Methodically my fingers sought out each ripe berry. The sky was a perfect blue and a slight breeze blew softly through the branches of the bushes to cool me. My berries were beginning to pile up. The sound of children’s excited squeals and laughter, birds chirping sweet choruses and the crunch, crunch of the gravel as car after car came and went, created an unseen orchestra around me.


“Mama, look this one’s as big as a pumpkin!”
“Quick can you come help me? I can’t reach that one.”
“Can we pick over here?”
Their enthusiastic youthfulness made me smile and I wondered how many berries they would really pick by the time they left. Delightfully unfocused and enjoying the moment, their goals were quite different than mine.
The ping, plop, ping of my blueberries was no longer audible. My pail was filling up quickly. It was 9:45. Reluctantly I forced myself to move towards the beginning of the row, stopping every couple of feet to pick that ‘one last berry’.
“How about me? Don’t leave me!” they seemed to cry out to me as I passed by. But I must stop.
Slowly I made my way to the hut to weigh my berries.
“Wow, you picked a lot today! Fourteen lbs!”
As before, I nodded and smiled. When I headed to my car, I heard her say to some new berry pickers, “way down, either side”.