Black Raspberries

Beloved:

     I know better than to throw away the paperwork spiked along with a new plant.  I’m bound to forget that they are black raspberries, that no matter how deep red they are, if they are hard as rocks and difficult to pick, they aren’t ripe.  Unlike blackberries, they grow in clusters of three to five berries.  The middle one ripens first and the first wave turned black this weekend.  Ripe, they pull neatly from the stem and re-define the word succulent. 

    Last evening my nephew Liam, age 5, helped me weed and water and tend the chickens.  We were sweaty and filthy and thirsty when we stopped to eat a few berries straight from the vine. .  “Have you ever heard of raspberry pie? he asked, “Because I’m thinking we should get a clean bowl and come out here tomorrow to pick about a hundred and make  us a pie.”   I agreed, so that’s our plan for Friday.  In the meantime (grandma) Cacky is taking all six of her grandkids to Holiday World - with which not even NetNet’s pie can compete!

     The stunning miracle of black raspberries ~ that I can push a single, tendril into the ground and almost exactly twelve months later have berries galore is to me a miracle.  All i did was fertilize a little and water a lot.  I pruned and trained it to the fence but it has given back so much more than I earned.  

     I think about how the Creator might have chosen to feed us with kale - it’s super nutritious and edible . . . . and that’s about all there is to say about kale.  But raspberries!  As if God decided we should have sweets too ~ so we can know what joy tastes like!

     Whatever else this day brings, look for the sweetness too.  peace & prayers, pastor annette    

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