Yesterday, I did what I’ve done since I was a little girl. I opened the cupboard, pulled out a Tupperware container, slipped on my shoes and went to pick blackberries. And for the briefest moment, I was child again.
It was a sunny afternoon, and I might as well have had braided pigtails and jelly sandals on, for how my body remembered to squat low and look under leaves for the juiciest berries. I’ve picked blackberries from random roadsides since I could walk. They are one of the joys of summer in the Northwest, and something that I deeply missed when we lived in Hawaii.
Sure, we could get blackberries, but they were usually at least $8 a container and would mold practically overnight. Plus, they just never tasted as good as the roadside berries I was used to. The ones that were warm from the sun and practically melted on my tongue.
Our first summer back, I delighted in picking multiple containers of them, not sure what I’d use them for, but amazed at the bounty. Since then, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the magic of blackberry season, which starts well before the first berry can be plucked.
In fall and winter, the vines die back, then in the early spring the begin to climb and stretch. Early summer brings white blossoms, which gradually transform into green berries. Those green berries slowly redden and then turn to a purple so deep that it appears black.
Our daily walking route passes multiple berry patches, so Erik and I have been watching and waiting for them to be ready for weeks. The first few we tasted in late July made us pucker. But now, now they are perfect. And that brings me back to yesterday.
As I dropped berry after berry into my container and watched it fill, I was struck by two things.
First, the resilience of these berry plants. They are cut back, stomped on, sprayed with chemicals, and still find a way to thrive. (I do know that most of them are Himalayans, an invasive variety, but I’m not going to get into that today.)
What might I learn from watching these berries persist year after year, producing fruit because it’s what they were created to do? They don’t care that they are sometimes unwanted. They don’t care that they are scorned. They just go on doing what they were created to do – producing the fruit they were meant to produce.
The second thing these berries are teaching me is to be awed by the beauty — and bounty — of God’s provision.
No person works to produce these fruits, and we don’t do anything to deserve them. Yet, they are there, vines heavy with berries. The abundance is so astonishing that even after my container is full, I struggle to turn away. There are still so many good ones. So much deliciousness just waiting to be enjoyed.
As I slip a warm sun-warmed berry between my lips, I think back to my childhood and the countless number of buckets, jars, and containers my family and I have collected over the years. Back then, the picking was unhurried, but as soon as we got home, the action would start. Immediately, my mom would start washing the berries and then begin to transform them into jam, fruit leather, and cobbler. Entire gallons would be tucked into the chest freezer in the garage to be made into pie, more jam, or muffins throughout the year ahead so that we would get to taste summer’s sweetness on the coldest of winter days.
Where I live now, there are blackberries everywhere, just like there were in the neighborhood I grew up in.
They are abundant and endless. Resilient and determined. Just like God’s love.
I fully admit I’m a bit of a wanna-be hippie. I like doing things the “natural” way, I eat vegetarian, I think plants are amazing, and I love the idea of growing all the food Erik and I eat. (It’s never going to happen, but I still think it would be pretty awesome.) So, when we moved into our current rental house, I was thrilled that there were two raised garden boxes just waiting to be filled.
It was April, and I had seeds and vegetable starts in the ground before I even had a photo hanging on the wall. That’s how excited I was.
Spring turned to early summer and one day, while I was wandering around the side of the house, I looked up and caught my breath.
What? Could it be?
I rushed to the front door, threw it open and yelled, “Erik!”
Hurrying out of his office he looked at me and said, “What’s wrong?”
“We have an apple tree!” I exclaimed. “On the side of the house! Come see!”
I admit if I lived up to my hippie ideals and was better at plant identification, I would have recognized the tree for what it was months before. But I didn’t. Neither did Erik. But, seeing how excited I was, he dutifully slipped on his shoes and followed me outside.
“Look!” I said, pointing up at the small, light-green balls that had formed.
“Yep. That’s an apple tree,” Erik said and then went back inside.
The tree was loaded and I started dreaming about all the amazing things I’d make when they were ripe.
Pie. Crisp. Apple sauce. Breads. Muffins. I could dehydrate them like my mom had when I was a little girl.
I watched and waited for them to grow to full size and be ready to be picked.
A few months later, I went outside one day and saw that apples were strewn across the grass under the tree.
I walked over to pick one up and saw that it had bruised from the fall.
All of them had. Well, bummer, but they did take a good tumble. I picked up the best ones and took them inside to try to salvage the unbruised halves.
I cut one open and saw streaks of rotting inside.
I tossed it into the yard-waste and grabbed another one. It was the same. There were also holes formed by some worm or bug already having had a feast. I kept cutting until I find one section that looked edible and took a bite.
Mealy. Mushy. Miserable.
These apples were terrible.
“Of course they are bad,” I told myself. “They fell. The ones I pick will be better.”
Determined, I went out to pick some a few days later and repeated the same process of discovery.
My dreams, along with thousands of bad apples, ended up in our yard waste bin that year.
Even picking them all up was tedious. Every day, it seemed like hundreds more fell, littering the ground and rolling onto our street where they were inevitably smushed to oblivion by passing cars.
I tried to keep up with them, but it was no use.
Eventually, they all fell and we were able to properly dispose of them, occasionally taking a slice just to make sure they were all bad.
They were.
Not to be deterred, when the next summer rolled around, I told myself I was going to find a use for these apples. There had to be something I could make with them. (On a sidenote: apple season is usually in the fall, but these are an early variety and start falling in July.)
Then it hit me, applesauce! They can be mushy if you’re making applesauce. I just needed to peel them, and cut out any critter-eaten bits.
That year I toted a bowl of the best-looking ones into the kitchen and got out my peeler.
The minuscule amounts that were salvageable weren’t worth the effort.
Defeated again, I admitted to myself I’d spend the next two months carrying buckets of apples to the bin.
Thankfully, I did have a friend who has alpacas who love apples. She often buys them boxes at a time, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask if she wanted any. She did! We loaded up a box and took them to church to hand them off.
The moment we opened our trunk you could smell slightly rotting apples. Apparently, this particularly variety doesn’t store at all. If you’re going to dare to eat them, they are a day-of kind of thing. But the alpacas didn’t seem to mind, so they got some apples and my friend didn’t have to buy apples that week.
But still, there was no way two alpacas could eat all of our apples. The rest ended up filling our yard-waste bin to the brim. Erik could barely roll it out it was so heavy.
The next summer, I didn’t even try to eat them. I just let them fall and picked them up as I could, once again giving Erik an arm and back workout with the overflowing yard waste bin.
But then, one day when I was out in the garden, a large, gray pick-up truck pulled up.
The introvert in me got nervous.
Did I know them? What did they want? Did I have to talk to them?
I tried smiling as they rolled down the passenger window.
“Are you guys using those apples?” The driver asked from under a camouflage hat.
“No, because they are terrible,” I said, suddenly feeling ashamed that I had neglected my apple clearing duties to the extent that passing neighbors had taken notice.
“We have chickens. They’ll tear them up. Can we have some?”
“You can have them all!” I said back. “But they really aren’t good.”
“I’ll send my sons over later to pick up some of the ones that have fallen. They’ll bring you some fresh eggs, too.”
“They can come as many times as they want. They can even pick them off the tree,” I said thrilled that these apples would at least feed some more of God’s creatures.
“Nah. They’ll just get the fallen ones,” the driver said. “Thanks.”
“Thank you!” I replied as he rolled up his window and pulled away.
And that brings us to this year. The apples started falling a few weeks ago. Hoping to at least share some, we went over to the neighbors and asked if they wanted them. Turns out they are moving and had already sold their chickens.
Not to be deterred, I texted another friend who has chickens and offered her apples.
She replied within minutes.
“We already get plenty of apples for the chickens from our neighbors. But thank you.”
Ok. Yard-waste bin, I hope you’re ready for this year’s bountiful harvest.
A few days later, after already tossing at least three buckets of apples, we ran into another neighbor while on a walk.
“Do you guys want eggs?” she asked. “I was just giving out eggs.”
“Jess doesn’t really eat them, and I can’t go through them fast enough on my own,” Erik said. “But thank you for offering.”
“Wait. Do you have chickens?” I asked. We’d never heard a peep in the dozens of times we’d walked by their house.
“Yep,” she said.
“Do you want apples for them?”
“They’d love them.”
“Great, I’ll drop a bag off later.”
Redemption! I have found a purpose for at least some more of the apples.
Later that day, I walked a grocery sack of apples over, a note with my phone number tucked inside.
She texted me a few hours later saying thank you, the chickens would love them and that they’d eat that many in about a day.
I had tried to be conservative, not wanting to give her too many, but she explained she had 10 birds and they ate a lot.
“You can drop some off every other day, if that works for you,” she messaged.
So this year, not only two alpacas, but 10 neighborhood chickens are enjoying the fallen fruit from our apple tree. And my neighbor and I have been talking more and building a deeper relationship.
At one time, I thought all that fruit was a waste. But it turns out it’s helping me build community, right here in my little neighborhood. And that’s sweeter than any apple could ever be.
By the way, we still have more apples than friends with livestock, so if you want some bad apples, grab a bucket and come on over. I’ll even help you pick them.
Jessica Ivaska 