I walked along the edge of the stream reminiscing a scene from my favorite childhood book. I brought home a book from my mom's house called, "The Little House on the Prairie." It was one of my favorite books growing up. Every night before bed, I begged for a Scooby-Doo story, Mickey Mouse and the Haunted House, or Little House on the Prairie. Living here on the farm now, I can relate to a lot of what goes on in the book.
In one chapter, Ma and Laura are walking down the stream. they're picking big, juicy, blackberries. It was a hot, Summer day and Ma and Laura stayed close to the shade along with the deer. The blue jays flew at their sunbonnets angry that they took their berries. Snakes crawled away from them as fast as they could, and they awoke the squirrels in the trees overhead. The mosquitos swarmed around them coming from the itchy briers. Laura's hands and mouth were stained with berry juice and her and Ma's legs were scratched from the thorns. But every day they came home with pails of berries and laid them out to dry in the sun.
I thought of that scene while I tiptoed around the briers by the stream looking out for snakes. I saw the berries, pretty soon they would be big blackberries. I thought ahead to the Summertime, picking a bucket of blackberries to take back home and freeze sounded delightful.
As a child at my mama's house, we used to go down to the ditch line and pick, I think it may have been blueberries? We would fill little bowls up and snack on them all the way back up to the house where they were frozen for snacking all year long.
This staying home 95% of the time isn't so bad. I have located all the blackberry bushes around the streams. Now I'm ready for the Summer so I can pick them all!
Be sure to comment on what you've been doing to pass the days!
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