Growing up in rural northeast Iowa was a treat. I’ll always look back fondly on memories of hours on bikes, fishing in creeks with my bamboo pole, hunting for morel mushrooms in the spring, and picking black raspberries in the summer.
Black raspberries, also known as “black caps,” grow in tangled thickets at the edges of our midwestern woods. Their very existence dares you to try, just try to grasp their purple squishy tart-sweet goodness, because the canes are full of thorns, and any serious berry picking expedition involves some readiness.
As kids we were often sent off to pick them in the afternoons, ice cream pails in hand to the sticky conditions. Sticky in more ways than one – the thorns of course, and the fact that black raspberries are at their prime in July, usually during some of the summer’s warmest and most humid days.
A trip out to the raspberry patches always resulted in sweaty bodies, snagged hair and clothing, and purple fingertips from picking the juicy fruits. The sun would seem most intense whenever we were berry picking, and the flies and gnats at their most annoying. Raspberry canes grow upward, then arch over and root when their tips touch the ground, so tugging on a cane doesn’t always move it aside. Multiply that by hundreds, along with the webs of wild grape and Virginia creeper vines that are invariably part of the tangle, and the brambly thickets are tough to forage. Of course, we never waited until we got home to sample some – eating as you picked was always part of the fun, and the endurance of the conditions was part of the reward.
My dad loved black raspberries, so he often joined the picking. Being taller, he was already at an advantage, able to get to the ones that were always just out of reach of shorter arms. He had a system too, fastening his bucket to the front of his belt, so he could go at it two-handed. Dad’s favorite way to enjoy black raspberries was over vanilla ice cream – a treat that was common after many summer suppers. He really did enjoy the literal fruit of his labors, and often froze the extras to have a taste of midsummer goodness during the winter.
My home is now east of the Mississippi River and nestled at the foot of a bluff that contains the lower Wisconsin River, but not really far from where I spent most of my childhood. I’m fortunate to have black raspberries growing behind my house and on either side of my driveway. It’s just one example of all that we were given to exist on, that is close by and accessible to us, and I have tried to gain a greater appreciation and reverence for that.
The black raspberries are in full production as of this writing; I am picking at least every other day and enduring the conditions I remember when I was younger. I’m a more careful picker now; I know to look high but also low, and again on my way out of a patch, since the berries are adept at being under and behind leaves and can easily be overlooked at first glance. Just as important is knowing to be careful, but to move ahead because the results are sweet and well worth it. Perspective is everything in berry picking and in life.
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