Blackberries

     Monday afternoon found me in one of my happy places, actually a good briar patch.  I don't know why but for some reason I seem to be content out in a field picking blackberries. Is it because I think it is the southern thing to do? I am really not sure. I do know that picking berries is something I can remember doing all the way back to my childhood. We used to have these gallon ice cream buckets from K&B that we would take and pick blackberries in the deep ditches in our neighborhood. All of the neighborhood kids would do this every spring. We would take our bounty home and wash them . Some we would eat in a bowl of milk with sugar and the others mom would make into a cobbler made with Bisquick. Years later she would come across the most divine cobbler recipe, so much better than that old Bisquick one. Her cobbler recipe is  so good that my friends from school will actually fight over it if they know it has even entered my classroom. My husband requests it all the time .
     I can remember one particular berry picking trip in the woods near my grandmothers house. My cousin Cherie and I along with some of our other cousins went and picked berries in the woods. Our fathers went with us and on the way back Cherie was walking ahead and stepped right over a snake laying across our path. I think it scared the adults more than all of the children. But for some reason blackberries and snakes seem to go hand in hand. I have only encountered one in the many time that I have gone picking. The only thing I saw was the end of his green tail slithering away. Now when I go I usually take a yard tool with me , for my protection , but it also serves the purpose of pushing the prickly vines away so I can get to more of the berries.

     I spent Monday side by side with my husband picking the sweet berries . We picked in silence most of the time , not because we didn't have anything to say but because where we were was so beautiful and peaceful. We gathered enough for me to put up 6 quarts in the freezer but that is not near enough ....those berries are still calling my name. I have unbaked cobblers with names already earmarked on them...friends who need them because they need a little comfort , because they have begged me to make "the cobbler", because the sweetest thing  to see is  my husband piled up in his recliner with our four year old in his lap while they share a big bowl of warm blackberry cobbler and vanilla ice cream. Are you salivating now? Are the fields of blackberries calling your name? They are mine. I will go back next week with my yard tool and enjoy my time of quiet reflection out in a field of berries.

The Veranda and The Briar Patch

     It is eleven o'clock at night, three days shy of a much needed spring break, in my twenty-first year of teaching. My four year old has snuck into my big, comfy bed and claimed her spot on "my side". My husband is two days away from catching the red eye home after working five straight weeks. My almost twenty year old (gasp) daughter is on the other side of the bay preparing to send her beloved back to work in a foreign country. All is crazy in my world. Eric and I are on the last leg of building our dream home, graduating one daughter from college, and enrolling the other in 4K. We are starting all over again as parents. It seems odd reflecting on the fact that sixteen years ago he was right beside me as I put Ashley in school for the very first time. But more of that for another day. I need to explain the name of my blog. I named it The Veranda and the Briar Patch. A veranda or veranduh is a porch, something we southerners just can't live without.I needed porches so much in my dream home that as crazy as I am I put three of them in my new house. We will have the front porch, the back porch (for cooking out ) and the screened in porch. So I will have my choice of porches to sit on , sip a glass of iced tea, and watch Anslee play as we  live out in the country. The briar patch on the other hand , is a dense patch of thorny vines,an entrapment to some if you would. It's the place we are all running away from but always  seem  to get stuck in. Like the old saying goes you can run but you can't hide. As complicated and crazy as my life takes me at the end of the day I would much rather be sitting on my veranda, sipping a glass of iced tea, and enjoying life. However , I know that the dice don't always roll in my favor. I always seem to get stuck in that briar patch, twisted, conflicted, full of thorns , trying to find my way out. Always trying to find my way back to that ever peaceful veranda where I can live my southern way of life and enjoy the many blessings that do happen to find their way to me. So sit back , take a load off of your feet , grab an iced cold beverage and stay awhile....I will be back again with another story  real soon......Kim