Free Fruit

On this holiday I thought I would take it easy. We ended up picking fruit.  Picking fruit was fairly relaxing except for the occasional fire cracker going off in the neighborhood.  We started with the wild blackberries that have volunteered in my yard.  We picked 3 pints of those.  The unripe blackberries are white or red.  The ripe blackberries are black and shiny.  We saw blackberries that were black but not shiny and those aren't ready yet. After a few minutes of picking you can tell the difference.  The ripe blackberries fall off the bush.  I lost quite a few to the ground. Of course the prettiest, most inviting, and delicious blackberries aren't on the border of the mowed paths.  Noooooooooooooooooo, the best ones are deep inside the blackberry patch.  That is why my legs look like I have been whipped.  I have scratches up and down my legs from those blackberry brambles.  After that struggle, picking cherries seemed so easy.  I really didn't mind picking the fruit because I wasn't keeping any and therefore would not have more work to do with it.  After that we had a bonfire. I burned a big pile of white oak and black walnut.  I still have some left but it's now a manageable amount.  A couple years ago I had a 8 foot tall burdock plant full of the pesky burdock hitchikers.  I wasn't sure what to do with it.  I wish I had cut it before it got that tall and so full of stickers. I cut it off and burned it.  That turned out to be a mistake because now, all around my fire scar, I have burdock plants growing.  I tried breaking them off.  They don't break.  I tried bending them. They straightened right upright.  So I burned them. These younger burdock didn't have any seeds on them yet.  Despite being burned the stalks are still upright.  I even went so far as to put a hot brick on one stem to force it to the ground.  That didn't work either.  Those burdock plants are nasty.  As I wetted the ground around the fire ring the nasty burdock tripped me and I almost fell into the bonfire.  Twice.  I'm lucky I caught myself because falling into a bonfire would not be good.  I guess I will have to take a loppers to those burdock.  Sitting around the fire, eating ice cream, talking, watching damselflies and dragonflies, and listening to the birds sing made for a lovely holiday evening..