I know, another picture of and post about blackberries. I can imagine what you are thinking: "TB, have you ever seen a blackberry bush before?"
Oddly enough, I have. For most of my life.
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Blackberries were a common enough occurrence in Old Home growing up (as it turns out, they are common in a lot of places). They grew along creeks that I remember from then; the creek by our house (gloriously named a "ravine") had them on either side. They were something to avoid at best as we waded, building dams and looking for crawdads.
But I have other, deeper memories of blackberries as well.
Growing up - probably until I was 10 or so - we would go in Summer up past The Ranch to a piece of property that had been homesteaded by my Maternal Great-Grandfather. Everything on the property had burned in the late 1950's, but the property remained in the family and was overgrown with blackberries. We would go as a family along with my maternal grandmother and grandfather and pick blackberries in season - to be fair, more the adults than my sister and I, who would pick, wander off, play in the drainage ditch, and then return. The blackberries would come with us, where they would be washed and made into blackberry jam - which we would eat for the rest of the year.
We ate it enough that blackberry jam has become something I do not seek out.
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Blackberries at The Ranch in TB The Elder's time were mostly a nuisance.
They popped up along the seasonal creeks in the Meadows such that they had to be cut back every year and, at the southwestern end of The Lower Meadow, they formed a practical barrier along the property line that could not be penetrated.
They were also helpful spread by our bear population, who scooped them up in season and then took the liberty of spreading them around through their "deposits". And the blackberries happily responded - by the time we made the decision to sell The Ranch, they had started to overtake the road that was the deeded access to the property.
Someone else's challenge now, that.
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The blackberries you see above are along a trail behind the housing neighborhood in which we live.
They are maintained some extent - in that the trail they are next to is cleared - but not much more than that. They fascinate me, the pink flowers that come to enclose a green globe that will turn black with the season.
I confess that I track them now and, when the season comes, will start to pick them on my walk; being a public area, there seem to be no sorts of rules about such things other than not over-taking the bounty.
What a pleasant surprise to find a part of my history in a place I never expected to find it.
Likely Rubus armeniacus, the dreaded Himalayan blackberry. Him a layin' across the crick. Him a layin' across the sidewalk. Him a layin' across the shed.
ReplyDeleteERJ, that seems like an entirely accurate assessment. Given enough time, they could take over the world.
DeleteGrowing up there were patches of raspberry scattered across the neighborhood, we kids sampled them as we ran amuck. Cutting the back yard yesterday I noticed a considerable pile of scat with plenty of seeds throughout it, wonder what that racoon had found TB.
ReplyDeleteNylon12 - I have never lived anywhere (until now in New Home 2.0) where there were anything else but blackberries. I certainly did not appreciate the novelty like I should have.
DeleteInterestingly, the only thing I could that sprouted from bear scat was blackberries. Why not something more useful?
Blackberries can be a nuisance. I'm cutting them back to feed to the goats all the time. I don't make jam, but I do make blackberry jelly, as neither Dan nor I care for the seeds getting stuck in our teeth.
ReplyDeleteLeigh, they really are if you are the one that has to deal with.
DeleteI read your comment and was swept back to my childhood, with the seeds constantly in my teeth.