We are fortunate enough to have a raspberry patch in our backyard - it is our second one, actually, the first got removed when we put up our fence. But Audrey planted a replacement a few years back and this year it has really come into its own in terms of fruit, producing at least a cereal bowl worth of juicy bounty every day.
It's a good thing Nitti's rope does not extend as far as the raspberries, which rest along the fence just west of the garage corner. He could reach the original patch, which was closer to the house, and would daintily nibble off the berries without using his teeth - no mean feat for an animal lacking facile lips.
With Audrey at work this afternoon, I was tasked with picking today's crop. I had been advised to wear a glove in order to hold back the thorny branches, facilitating pain-free picking, but it was hardly necessary. I sat on the ground beside the bush, enabling me to gaze up under the leafy cover and see the fruit more clearly.
I was out picking shortly after noon and looking up at the red and white berries standing in stark contrast to the sun-dappled emerald leaves presented an amazing tableau. My crude picture does the scene absolutely no justice, but I wanted a reminder of how impactful a simple change in perspective can be. The fruit, nearly invisible while standing, practically begged to be plucked from my vantage point on the ground. In truth, most are so ripe that if you brush them with your fingertips, they will roll into your palm in the most obliging fashion.
Taking only the ripest berries, I still had a bowlful in under ten minutes' time.
It's a simple thing, a raspberry patch; easy to plant and difficult to kill, and next season it will be bigger still. And yet it is such a privilege, such a blessing, to have a living thing so bountiful in one's backyard, in a climate we do not normally associate with sweet things, that it cannot help but be a wonder as well.
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