Blackberries

Growing up in a rural part of southern Michigan, I have had some amazing experiences afforded to me that not all children have. On that list are things such as: watching the birth of piglets and calves, building forts & tunnels in my father's haybarn, playing in deep wagons & silos filled with dry corn kernels, cutting and freezing sweetcorn with aunts and cousins, taking my bike on adventures through the 40+ acres of fields and woods, playing in huge mud puddles with my brothers, swiping apples from the neighboring apple orchard, learned to drive tractors at an early age.................... it's a never ending list.

An especially fun and yummy part of growing up in the country was eating wild berries that grew along dirt roads and in the woods near our home. Invariably, one of us 5 kids would over indulge and be doubled over for hours. "If I've told you kids once, I've told you a thousand times, eating too many berries will give you a stomach ache!" my mother's words would ring in our ears.

A mother's wisdom well understood now that I'm a mother; however, at 40 something, the berries got the best of me once again. While mowing my parents' yard this week, I couldn't resist the wild growing black berries so ripe and begging to be picked. On and off, on and off the John Deere mower I would hop to pick and eat the sweet irresistible fruit.

How many berries makes for a good ole fashioned "doubling over?" I lost count but they sure were wonderful going down.