Raspberry Delight

Sometimes around here, I find delight in things that no one else does.  Like the smell of  fresh second cut hay stacked in the hay garage.  Or the one and only hollyhock that appeared for the first time in three years after I planted it.  Or the red earthworms that are everywhere when I dig in the garden, thanks to all that good horsey compost.  So, this morning, I was filled with joy as I picked the first wild raspberries of the season from the bush behind the barn.

There is an on-going battle between me and my husband about ripping out the raspberry bushes.  I admit, they show up everywhere.  He hates them with a passion. We have agreed that I am allowed to have one big patch next to the driveway and another behind the barn. I secretly know about three other bushes that I try to hide from him, but they aren’t the robust producers that the big patches are.  While the fruit of the wild raspberries is not as big as the berries found on domesticated bushes, it is much more intense in its raspberry goodness.  The flavor is so super, hyper raspberry-ish that I usually eat half of what I pick by the time I get the bowl back to the kitchen.

And for the next two weeks, I will have raspberry muffins, raspberry pancakes, raspberries on ice cream, cereal, sprinkled on my salads.  There was only one other person who loved the raspberries as much as I do – my mom. And I will think of her, remember how we would argue since she always tried to pick them before they were ripe enough, and how we would eat all of what we picked by the time we got the bowl to the kitchen so that we would laugh and  have to turn around and  go back out and find some more.