It's almost time to make blackberry wine.... rubbing hands... they always ripen on my birthday, or did when I was a kid. Here, it's about a week after.
Blackberries... which we can't use gloves with because we can't nibble off a handful before working arm back out of the Iron Maiden of vines.
Oh, who else (female) here ever went berry picking without a bra and leaned stupidly into a bank of Himalayas?
Our neighbor had a bunch of the little wild berries come up next to her porch, and has already picked more than her husband found in the woods in four trips.
Speaking of berries, the Thimbleberries on the side of our road are popping out now. My favorite berry; they taste like a cross between raspberries and roses. Some people think they're insipid, and it takes a lot to make jam, and then they lose that special flavor. So I just stand and snarf them like a happy monkey in the long meadow. This is how we're supposed to eat, anyway. I can't reach into the back bushes -- or I don't feel like it -- so I'm not eating anybody else's share; there are so many berries up here now, every bird and mammal and insect has more than they want. It's why we're putting off cleaning the outside of the house for the year, until the birds stop bombing the very pale lavender paint.
The signs of spring and summer. Salmon-berry bird begins to sing when the salmon-berries ripen, and goes silent as the thimbleberries cap red and juicy. And the house gets decorated with purplish splotches.
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