A berry satisfying expedition

A couple weeks ago, I enjoyed a raspberry event. It was great. I hope you get to have one, too.

In the first part of June, I was talking with Larry Thomsen at a get-together. Larry and Pam live just east of Jefferson on the north side of Old 30 where they grow hogs, cattle and raspberries, and maybe some other stuff.

I knew about the raspberries. Larry’s devoted himself to them for a number of years.

I’d never been out to see them, or to get some, but from time to time he’d told me about them and some of their unique characteristics. We started to talk raspberries one fall when we invited him to come by our place to pick up a whole bunch of maple leaves to protect his canes during the winter.

Most of what I know about raspberries, which isn’t much, comes from Larry.

(Kathy and I planted a few raspberry canes one year. We didn’t weed them or provide much care, and of course they died. We didn’t replace them.)

During our early June conversation this year, I asked Larry if he’d had much of a run on the berries. Thomsens’ raspberry patch is one of those where you can pick your own.

No, he said. First, it was too early: “The black ones are always ready about the 4th of July,” he explained. “The red ones are more unpredictable. It will be sometime in the first half of August for them.”

Chalk up another raspberry learning experience.

But he added with a philosophical smile, “Back in the day I had big ideas about the raspberry business. People always ask about them and say they’ll be out to pick some when they’re ripe. But almost no one actually shows up.”

“I can’t believe that,” I said. “What’s the problem?”

Larry didn’t know. Maybe folks are just too busy. Maybe it’s the thorns and prickles, or the mosquitoes. Maybe it’s just easier to pick some up in the store or at a farmers’ market. Anyhow, the pick-your-own raspberry business is pretty slow, he said.

“Well, this year I’m going to try it,” I said.

Larry grinned: “I’ll believe that when I see it. You’re probably not much different from most people. Good intentions, but ...”

That sounded like a challenge, so I resolved to follow through when the time came.

I was planning to call him about the 4th of July to check on the black variety’s ripeness.

But about June 18 he called me.

“I guess it’s different this year,” he said. “The black ones are ready now. I had a black raspberry sundae last night, and it was wonderful.”

That was enough for me.

“What’s the best time of day to pick?” I asked.

“The earlier the better. It can get hot in the patch later in the day,” he said.

“I’ll be out about 8:30 Thursday morning,” I said.

“We’ll see,” Larry said. “If you come, wear a long-sleeved shirt and a hat, and bring some mosquito repellent.”

It sounded as if he doubted I would show.

So I made sure I did.

Kathy gave me a coffee can and some mosquito tissue wipes, and I grabbed my floppy straw fishing hat and drove out to Thomsens’.

Pam came out of the house as I drove up. She gave me an empty gallon ice cream bucket, fitted out with an attached clip on the wire handle.

“Hook this onto your belt loop. It’ll leave your hands free to pick,” she explained. Made a lot more sense than my coffee can; I left that in the car, hooked up the bucket and Pam guided me back to the raspberry patch.

“Don’t worry about breaking off the canes,” she said.

She showed me some paths she and Larry had made through them, so I didn’t have to push through the tangled growth.

“Pick as many as you want, and keep the bucket; we have plenty of those,” Pam said. “Just leave the clip on the porch when you leave.”

I started at one end of the rows, picking the ripe berries (the black ones). There were lots of them. Some clusters had five or six ripe ones together, and others had just one that had turned black surrounded by red unripe ones.

In most places I had to fend off prickles, which left a few small scratches on my skin. And the juice gradually stained my hands and fingers a purplish color.

But it was a fine 45 minutes.

Mosquitoes usually don’t bother me much, and there was a morning breeze that kept nearly all the bugs off anyway. There wasn’t much of a dew, so I didn’t get very wet either.

I figured it would take quite a while to accumulate many berries, picking them one at a time. But by the time I reached the end of the rows along one side, and was ready to start going back down the other side, the bucket was satisfyingly heavy.

Larry came out of the house as I got to my car. I showed him my cache.

“Looks like you’ve got about five pints there,” he said.

I asked how much I owed him, and he gave me the estimate. I was surprised it wasn’t more.

“Part of the cost is labor,” he explained. “You supplied that, so you’re only paying for the berries themselves.”

“I’ll be back when the reds are ripe,” I said.

This time he may have believed me.

I had sampled a few berries in the patch, of course. They were delicious.

Raspberry jam is Kathy’s spread of choice; it’s what she always buys at the store. She made several jars of raspberry jam that afternoon, and froze the rest for a later raspberry pie.

I can’t wait.

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