Blueberry Picking Time

I think it is rather early for blueberries this year. Hmm, must be George Bush's fault! Anyway, I went to my favourite spot, brought along 60 mp3 songs (all Iron Maiden - I was feeling rather aggessive today)and picked 4 litres in 2 1/2 hours. I am aware that I did not set any picking records, but, the damn flies were bad and I kept on getting caught in my stereo headphones - when will they shrink the whole music box into the shape of a hearing aid? Now comes the worst part, cleaning the damn things.

Even though it is extremely hard on the back, I love picking blueberries. I don't mind picking strawberries, hate picking raspberries as the bushes are too prickly, and have little use for picking any vegetable. But, rain or shine, I have no trouble hunching over and getting mt fingers all blue.

I think my love of picking blueberries goes back to my childhood. There was a nice blueberry patch besides nanny and pops house and I remember the thrill in filling one of their tin cups full. (Speaking of the tin cups, there were 6 but mom lost one in the blueberry patch when she was a youngster.) As well, I think one of my first jobs was picking blueberries with Cindy and her mom sold them for us. I think we made $5 bucks each, which came in handy as the ex would have been only a couple of weeks away.

Finally, blueberry pie is my most favourite food and I remember being a little pissed when mom used to get nanny to make some pies with my blueberries - two pies, but she got to keep one for making them. As a ten year old, I knew that I was only going to get one big slice from "my" pie and that was not enough reward for all the time it took me pick the blueberries. Mom could not make the crust so if I wanted a blueberry pie it was going to cost me a pie. I guess we learn young that life is not necessarily fair!