DAY 139

Some of my fondest memories are of picking berries with my grandmother when I was young. We would head out early in the day to get to the berry patch before the sun was too hot. We took our sun hats and mosquito spray. When my kids were young we carried on the tradition. As grandma got older we would take a lawn chair for her to sit in while we picked berries. When my son was about four years old we were picking raspberries one July morning. He had his little berry basket and he was enthusiastically picking berries. After about half an hour he came to me and said "look how many berries I have mom." I looked at the six or seven berries in his basket and then looked at his face which was covered in berry juice. He was smiling from ear to ear. I told grandma that we should have weighed him before we started picking so that we could pay for the ones in his tummy.

When you are in a berry patch bits of conversation drift to you from all around. You hear little snippets of news from other berry pickers. I love trying to figure out who or what they might be discussing. I fill in the blanks to make interesting stories. I could write a whole book about the things I have overheard in a berry patch.

Miss Ten and I went out early today and picked four pounds of berries. She told me that her method is one berry for the bucket and one berry for her mouth. I think the bucket got cheated a few times on this trip.