About 30 years ago, neighbors gave us a small clump of raspberry plants they had dug up from their yard. We planted them next to a narrow sidewalk which runs along the side of our carriage house. Each year as runners from the plants came up out in the lawn, we dug them up and planted them along the sidewalk. We now have a dense thicket of raspberry plants about 20 feet long and 3-4 feet wide.
We have been out of town the past ten days, and in our absence the berries have ripened. Tonight I picked 2 quarts of raspberries. Lots more will be ripening over the next couple of weeks.
As I picked, I thought about the first few years when I was lucky if I got as much as a handful to bring into the house. The plants were fewer in number and the children playing on the swingset next to them were greater in number. My daughters were the first berry-snatchers. But, I do need to admit that the fact that my son and his friends cleaned off the bushes was my fault.
My son's first summer, he was about 8 months old when the berries were ripe. I would put him in the stroller and take him with me to work in the garden. As we passed the bushes, I would find one perfect berry, break it into small fragments and put them in his mouth. He would smack his little lips and enjoy the berry. I suppose I programmed him to be unable to pass those bushes without sampling the fruit.
Eventually the patch expanded to the point where even though my son and his friends helped themselves, I got enough in the house to make a pie or two, and have some to put in muffins or on top of ice cream.
The swingset rusted out and is long gone. No berry-snatchers play near by. I guess I'll be baking pies tomorrow. No amount of sugar will make them anything other than bittersweet.
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