Raspberries

You plant, dig posts, run wires, cultivate and pull weeds.  Why all the bother?  You can drive to the store, and buy raspberries anytime you want.

Then they bloom and bees descend by the thousands singing psalms of joy and praise to all who grow raspberries, and I feel like a god!

I like picking raspberries in the morning.  The leaves give wet kisses and whisper sweet nothings in my ear. The tires of trucks and cars on the highway sing traveling songs going places I only dream of.

My grand children eat berries ‘till they look like chipmunks with red lips. They fill little baggies to take home, and my oldest tells me, “I like the sour ones Grandpa.”

Then it’s winter, the garden is silent, and it’s time for holidays.  There’s raspberry Jello salad, raspberry blackberry pie, and raspberry rhubarb crisp.  When I eat these comfort foods, I hear bees singing psalms of joy and praise, I feel wet kisses and the whispering of sweet nothings in my ear.  I see my grandchildren looking like chipmunks with red lips.

And this is why I’m out there every spring - weeding, cultivating, thinning and tieing off those wonderful raspberries.