Blackberries---In League with the Devil

Blackberries---In League with the devil


Every year there is great anticipation of the blackberry harvest, a harvest that is always, for one reason or another, rather up for grabs. It seems that seldom is there really a good year where we can walk along a well-traveled trail and fill our containers with ease.

This year the rains came in a comfortable interval, the blossoms were abundant and the canes strong, if not imposing. It looked good as we set aside and cleaned ample jars while dreaming of cold winters where Blackberry jams were laid across great bowls of ice cream. The excitement was everywhere---but like each year here in Wisconsin, there was apprehension as things can go wrong.

So on the advice of Tom, I set forth to secure a winter’s store. “The best ones are up higher and in the sun”, he suggested as he left town. Optimistically, I climbed the trail heading west while noticing some immature berries hidden in the brambles. Not far up, I reached for the first-sighted ripe berries only to find my shirt sleeve, and a portion of my flesh, had been impaled on a first-year cane the size of  tropical bamboo and armed with blood thirsty spines. I must have thought it was a small tree when reaching into the thicket and not an armored guard cane. As I slowly withdrew with a couple of meager berries, another guard cane grabbed my hat flipping it to the ground. The slight vibration of the bramble, or was it the profanity, wakened the mosquitoes who realized a target had arrived. They joined the Deer Flies who were doing the usual kamikaze stunts.

I thought of the can of DEET I left in the car but in a flash realized I had been told not to get it on my hands as contaminated berries would certainly cause some heinous disease. I tightened my collar, checked the buttons on my sleeves and proceeded up the hill to the good spots.

Higher up the berries were more abundant but generally low down under the bramble, meaning they were well guarded by those nasty canes, the ones that have been put there, not to produce fruit, but simply to hurt people.

As I worked my way thorough the better areas, it appeared many of the ripe berries were rotting on the vine. They were so far gone as they were touched, they spilled their juice all over my now sore hands. At least half the fruit was not salvageable. It seems a small fly had the pleasure of plopping an egg on many of the berries and within one day the little buggers had violated the new fruit and introduced bacteria. Now the berries were fermenting and the smell of Blackberry wine was everywhere, but I was after fat ripe berries, not some stinking bacteria-ridden grub’s idea of cheap wine.

As a result of the rotting, grubbed-up berries, my hands were now a permanent deep red color, or so it seemed. On close examination it was also obvious some of the red was actually blood from the wounds inflicted by the guard canes. This was not going well.

After some forty minutes of effort, I looked into the pail to just take stock of my take, which at this point was little more than a cup. There sitting on top of the collection were two unhappy stink bugs, which very much like to emit a putrid smell when disturbed. They, like me, were frustrated, pacing and partially covered in the cheap wine. Possibly they were finding the experience pleasurable and were ripped to the nines on this Mad Dog brew, making them unlikely to anoint the berries----but maybe not.

By now the late morning heat was growing, the wine was brewing and my constitution was failing, along with my commitment and dreams of winter sweet delights. It was then it occurred to me I could be blindly picking along, then looking up through this thick tangle only to see berry-covered, and possibly unhappy bear feasting in the now ripening patch. This was an easy visualization because of the short field of vision caused by the thickness of the vegetation. Maybe I would just see this juice-stained, puzzled, tongue-lapping face staring at me as if I was an stumbling intruder. This would be a call for a resource war worse than those in the middle East. I didn’t even have a knife nor a suicide explosive vest. What was mostly berry color on me could easily be changed to mostly blood.

This hallucination was the final straw---probably caused by the fumes coming off the fermentation---alcohol being volatile and all. I thought “Would the bear only be eating the fermented berries, getting lousy drunk and then be bar-fight belligerent?” Would he slap me around, take my berries, take my ball hat and head off to catch a nap at Tom’s only to be later found smiling, but hung over with my ball cap on backwards. I’d be found some time later unconscious, if not expired, creating a headline for the Spirit  newspaper, “Older Man found in berry patch, scratched, berryless, and with his favorite Brewers ball cap missing.” Things once more were turning uncomfortably wrong. It was then it occurred to me, Blackberries are in league with the devil, nice to desire but all to often forbidden.