Am I Blue?

I haven't lived in Connecticut for nearly 30 years, so my recollection of the timings of the seasons is surely off. But there were several events that marked the different phases each year moved through, events that we as young people didn't realize were markers. I remember looking forward to them and enjoying them immensely as they were happening though. Apple season, when the Macs were fresh on the trees if one wanted to venture up to Granville or Lost Acres. That also meant Gretchen would be making applesauce - YUM! Dad couldn't wait for the "native tomato" signs to appear in the roadside fruit stands and would be speaking of it from Memorial Day in anticipation. The Memorial Day Parade. The End of School. Native Corn, first the Golden Bantam, then Mom's favorite - Butter and Sugar!
One of the others was blueberries. They grew wild in the woods around the house and especially around the lake. The bigger sweeter berries were always beyond reach from the bank and tantalizingly beautiful on the branches that reached out to the water. We'd begin to notice them in early summer and watch the progression from light green to red to maroon to ready to eat. I can't say I was the world's biggest blueberry fan back in those days. I remember we would sometimes make pancakes or muffins with them but it was pretty hard work to come up with enough to do that.
When I was 14 years old, I decided to go against tradition and not work the tobacco fields as my siblings before me had. Instead, I went to work picking blueberries for the now gone Flavor Mount Fruit Farms retail store that was just up the road from our house. That experiment lasted a day and a half; I found the piece rate of $.08 per pint far too small to warrant my efforts. It was hard work to gather enough berries from the low growing bushes to earn much money.
I was pleasantly surprised when my friend Lisa called me a couple weeks ago to ask if I wanted to make a trip with her to a "no pesticide" blueberry farm early on Saturday. Of course I said yes, both for the trip itself and the chance to pick fresh blueberries again. She texted me just as I was backing the Harley out of the garage to let me know the trip was off; she had received an email alert letting her know there were not many ripe berries left following the Friday picking. The farm allows picking on Fridays and Saturdays. She called me last Tuesday to ask if I wanted to go the morning of the Fourth of July. We left at 7:20 a.m. for the nearly seventy mile drive. Imagine my surprise when we arrived at the orchard and I discovered there are varieties of blueberry plants that more closely resemble trees than the ground huggers I was expecting!
Our picking was considerably slower than those that had come out the previous 2 weekends. I managed to pick 6 pints in the hour and a half we were there and didn't have to move all that much. I think I likely picked in ten or eleven places. Those operating the orchard were telling us that on the first weekend people were gathering eight pints (two gallons) in an hour, doubling David's usual standard for "good picking."
The fresh berries made the perfect compliment to the planned strawberry shortcake and Cool Whip dessert my wife had planned to take to the family gathering that afternoon. It was fun to serve a red, white and blue treat!
I'm still snacking on the berries and have found something from the past to look forward to again. I hope my Yankee family is able to participate in this tradition soon. I bet the berries are about ripe there now....