Raspberry Reverie

The raspberry bushes in the backyard are currently producing enough that I have had two pickings which were not quite enough for a pie and which I used on ice cream and cereal, and one picking that was enough for a pie which I am now enjoying.  There are more coming too.

So here are some raspberry memories….

In the mid 70s we moved into a neighborhood of old Victorian homes.  The new neighbor across the street was reorganizing her yard and dug up a small clump of raspberries which she gave to me.  I planted them along a narrow strip of sidewalk which ran next to the carriage house.  Raspberries propagate by send up shoots from their roots.  Every year before my husband mowed the lawn for the first time, I would dig up the shoots which had popped up in the lawn and plant them back along that narrow sidewalk.  After decades of living there, I had a raspberry patch about 3 feet wide and 15 feet long.

The summer after our son was born, I would put him in the umbrella stroller when I went to work in the garden behind the carriage house.  As we passed the raspberries, I would pick one big juicy berry and put it in his little 8-month old mouth.  When he was about 8 years old, and he and his friends ate most of the berries while playing on the nearby swing-set, I figured it was my own fault, and I couldn’t scold him.  I had taught him the enjoyment of a raspberry….or two or twenty…right off the bush.  There were years when only a literal handful made it into the house.

Yesterday we attended the calling hours for an elderly woman who passed away last weekend.  In the receiving line we met a pretty young woman in her 30s who was a granddaughter of the deceased lady.  We would not have recognized her, but when she was a child, she had lived in the house next to us for a time.  The first thing she said to us was “OH!  I used to eat your raspberries!”  I think she felt guilty about it, but there was no need.  We knew the neighborhood children enjoyed the raspberries!  She also mentioned ice-skating on the rink my husband used to create in the backyard.  I am always pleased when I hear that a young adult has pleasant memories from childhood of being in our home. 

When we moved to our present home 9 years ago, I moved some of the raspberries.  Here I must try to keep the deer from eating them.  Children I don’t mind, but those deer are a pain!  I have covered the bushes with netting, but that makes it difficult for me to pick the berries.

We are moving into a small apartment in two weeks, and this time I can’t take the raspberries along.  The new owners of our home have a little boy and another on the way.  I hope they enjoy the raspberries!