It may not have seemed like it at
the time, but the record snowfalls we had last winter were
the start of something good… a wetter-than-usual spring. As
I write this, on the eve of the Summer Solstice, we are more
than four inches ahead of our normal rainfall. The garden is
growing like weeds, and not just because it is, mostly; the
English walnuts are bending the branches of the tree toward
the ground, and for the first time in years our raspberries
are worth picking.
Our raspberry patch is the remnant
of an aborted attempt at entrepreneurship by our youngest
son. Sometime in the mid-70s, when he was 10 or 11 years
old, he saw an ad in a magazine which promised great
financial rewards from raising raspberries. He immediately
concluded that his paper route was not lucrative enough, and
decided to go into the raspberry business. Bankrolled by his
grandmother, he ordered a couple hundred plants, which came
complete with instructions for planting and cultivation.
However, despite many visits to my parents’ farm in West
Virginia, his knowledge of agriculture was surprisingly
limited. He studied the instructions intently, and finally
came to me with a puzzled look on his face: "Dad, it says I
should work Man Yoor into the soil when I plant the berry
vines. Do you know what that means?" I did know, of course;
when I was his age, it was one of my daily chores to clean
the manure out of the barn, and periodically to spread it on
the fields with the tractor. Apparently he had never heard
the word, so I tried to keep a straight face while I
explained. As it turned out, he was spared the experience of
direct contact with it; local farmers had already done their
spring plowing, and their manure supplies were exhausted, so
he had to buy commercial fertilizer instead. Most of the
plants survived the ensuing winter, but the next summer was
dry and no berries were produced. Faced with the prospect of
tending the plants another year without any return on his
investment, his interest dwindled and that section of the
garden drifted back toward its natural state. Twenty years
later, when we built our present house where the old garden
had been, I rescued a few of the surviving raspberry vines
from the brush and undergrowth that had engulfed them, and
they now reside peacefully in the corner of our yard.
Raspberries have played a role in
our family’s life for generations. Several years ago my aunt
showed me a diary my grandmother had kept in 1903. It was a
simple record which related each day’s events in a few terse
sentences. One entry particularly caught my attention: "We
all went down to the woods and picked raspberries today.
Susie got bit by a copperhead. Lloyd kilt it." The next
day’s entry stated that "Susie died this morning. I canned
raspberries and made 12 pts of jelly." I didn’t remember
anyone in the family named Susie, and I asked my aunt who
she was and if life back then was really so unfeeling that
they couldn’t even take a day off for a funeral. She
explained that Susie was the dog, and while everyone liked
her, life had to go on. The family were subsistence farmers;
there was no refrigeration then, and fruit had to be
processed when it was ripe. It wasn’t a luxury; it would be
needed, come winter time.
We didn’t have to raise berries when
I was growing up; there were plenty of wild ones, which
required no cultivation and bore abundant crops each year.
My father always reminded us to watch out for snakes and
made sure we wore heavy shoes or boots, but my brothers and
I went picking unattended. Occasionally we saw blacksnakes
or garter snakes, but we knew they were harmless. I enjoyed
picking the raspberries; most of them grew in shady places,
and you could snack on them as you picked. The first picking
was always the best; in the middle of each bunch on the
vine, there was always that one big, juicy berry that
ripened first and got bigger than the rest. We would get
several gallons each summer, and they would be frozen,
canned, or made into jam and pies. Occasionally we even had
a few extra ones to sell.
When I began dating my future wife a
few years later, my berry-picking skills made a favorable
impression on her mother, who was glad to have free berries
but disliked picking them herself because she was concerned
about snakes. She told us she had been out picking berries
when she was a girl and came upon the family cow, which was
lying down in a hypnotic state, with a snake sucking milk
from her. The snake, apparently startled by her approach,
turned itself into a hoop by putting its tail in its mouth
and rolled off down the hill and out of sight. The cow, she
said, was completely dry that night. A quick calculation
told me the snake must have consumed over two gallons of
milk, which meant it must have been the size of an anaconda.
I had heard such tales from my grandfather when I was
little; he had a formidable reputation as a storyteller and
liked to entertain children with such yarns. I was inclined
to be skeptical, but it didn’t seem prudent to question the
accuracy of an eyewitness, especially when I hoped to become
her son-in-law. So I nodded solemnly, promised to be
vigilant, and started off toward the solitude of the berry
patch with a pail in one hand and my fiancé-to-be in the
other. It was an enjoyable afternoon. We made sure to pick
some berries before we came home.
There are probably fewer than two
dozen berry vines remaining in the little patch in the
corner of our yard. Each day for the past week I have gone
down to collect the harvest; usually I get about half a
quart of berries. The area is full of weeds and somewhat
unsightly, and my wife is sure there are snakes in it too,
so she frequently urges me to clean it out and plant
something useful there. But I resist; the garden space we
already have produces more vegetables than we need. So in
another week, when they finish bearing, I will prune away
the old vines, cut back the weeds, and try to persuade the
new runners to take root in more or less orderly rows. I may
even put some Man Yoor on them. Then I will forget about
them until next year. As my son learned, we are at the mercy
of the weather; next June may bring another berry crop, or
it may not. But I know if I am still here I will be able to
look at the berry patch and harvest another crop of
memories. At this stage in life, that is enough.
To read past editions of the Retired
Ecologist visit the Authors’ section of Emmitsburg.net
Read other articles by Bill Meredith
