Raspberries

My parent's live on the otherside of town from us and we tend to venture to my parents once a week. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but that's about the average. It's been great for the summer because they have a huge back yard, a swingset and tons of toys so just being there gives me a little break from playing the "entertainer" because my kids have plenty to keep them occupied. In this huge backyard my parents have a smalle garden spot. Over the years it has had various plants depending on the amount of labor my parents (mom...) have to put into the garden that season. Two constants are a plum tree and raspberries. My mom planted a few small raspberry plants a few years ago and the things have gone CRAZY. Luckily, she fenced the garden space, so they are contained within the fences but even the plum tree's trunk is being covered in these crazy raspberries.

Well, Saturday was one of the days that we ventured over. My mom had asked me to come and help pick the berries as there were so many that were ripe and who wants to see glorious organic free raspberries go to waste?! So while kids were playing hard I made a lemon cheesecake. And while it was baking and the kids were napping, I found myself wearing my mom's gardening hat (sorry, no photo!) and began picking berries. I can't say how long I was out there, probably a couple hours. I got tons of prickly spines in my skin from these bushes, I was accosted by the worlds largest bumblebee TWICE (however it just kept SLAMMING into my mom's hat so that thing protected me from more than just the sun!) and a sore back. I got lots of thinking in, and fun conversations in with my hubby as he would come out periodically to update me on the progress of the cheesecake and trade out my berry filled pales. All in all, we picked 14 cups of fresh berries.

From there, my dad found the canning supplies and he, Mickey, and I (we tagged teamed between kids at this point) put to work making fresh raspberry jam. We started off thinking that we would just do freezer jam, but my dad got a wild hair and decided to go for the full out bottled stuff. Once the jam was done cooking, he mixed the jam foam (can't bottle that) with fresh berries and we topped the lemon cheesecake. The rest of the jam was bottled and turned out quite amazing I must say. The cheesecake was also fantastic (why wouldn't it be) and it turned out to be quite a relaxing adventure for all of us.
On a "deeper" note...I tend to think in metaphors (something you probably didn't know about me) and as I was picking these berries and getting stuck by prickles and walked on by spiders and bonked in the head by giant bees, I was also thinking about life, and there are a few things I decided in those bushes....

Every choice we make has good, and bad consequences. But I think that for the most part, we all have intentions of living good, praisworthy and successful lives. And oftentimes, along the way, we get stuck by pricklers. Those prickles get annoying more than anything, and painful...and then throw a nagging bee or two in and it might just chase us from reaping the most fruit from our labors really. Maybe we feel we already collected enough and we are blessed with what we have accomplished thus far and walking away is good enough. But sometimes, pressing on just a little longer, gives us not only jam, but cheesecake as well. I doubt I'm making sense, and my ramblings are purely just annoying. I just know, that there have been moment's in my life, that I have allowed the pains of labor chase me from reaping the full fruit of the vine. And I wonder what would have happened if I had just kept going a little longer. We can't let the little prickles get to us, eventually they wash out. Sometimes, we just have to say, "to hell with you all, I'm getting the fruit!" and ignore it, move on. The prickles are just trying to keep you from getting what they want...the fruit.