Herbivore

Two friends and I went out to the country where farmland still exists, beyond the desolate drywall of shopping malls and half acre parking lots.  We were on a jaunt to pick blueberries, and as we traveled the road, box stores turned to smaller franchises, turned to homes, turned to plots of land that held fields of corn and hay, with orchards of peach, apple, and cherry trees.  The driveway was graveled, and sometimes the sound of crunching stone under the tires of a car can mean adventure for a city person, who is usually more used to noiseless asphalt painted with yellow lines.  The pulverized stone announced arrival, no sneaking up on anything for us.  It was a sunny day.

The attending family member who was watching the store handed us buckets that would hold eight pounds of blueberries.  The attending farm dog plopped himself down at our feet, greeting us with a dog smile of infinite beneficence; his black fur stuck out in prickles for he had been wading belly deep in some farm pond.  He hypnotized us into patting his good, steady character with minimal fuss; after a bit of whatta good boy, he left for other duties as more customers pulled in.

The blueberry bushes were cloaked by blue netting just above head high and on the sides to keep out birds and other fruit-eating species.  It must work well, for the bushes still held ample berries even this late in the season, and buckets filled quickly.  Once you get the hang of holding the bucket under the selected branch, you can lightly whisk the ripe berries directly into the pail without tedious one at a time nonsense.  This was business, this meant pie.

I heard cicadas and blackbirds, I heard the wind wash through the rounded leaves of the bushes, the good growing things flushed the air with oxygen, the crickets rubbed happy legs together in cricket thought.  I felt a different sense of being home--standing on dirt, legs whipped by goosegrass and foxtail, hands sticky from berry juice and dust.  We finished and took the berries back to the stand for weighing; they were then transferred to open cardboard trays which allowed easy carrying.  I also purchased a few ears of corn, red Russian garlic, and a quart basket of tiny creamer potatoes for steaming.  Summer is for getting as many fruits and vegetables as you can, no holds barred.

While toting the produce to the car, the attending farm cat, also black, was enamored of a green thing climbing up the frame of the barn door.  This green critter seemed to be in no hurry to escape the nosy, intrusive animal, and had semi-turned its upper body to greet whatever onslaught was planned with derision and punishment.  It was a praying mantis with the attitude of a Brooklyn boxer, its forelegs held at the ready for a one-two knockout punch.  The cat was amused and would have had light lunch if I didn't intervene.  I scooped the pugilistic insect up onto my arm and was met with the triangular stare of the unblinking; I found a patch of grass out of cat range, and shook my arm gently to dislodge the rescue who wanted no such thing but to climb higher up.  It ended well after I put everything else down to realign Mars with Jupiter, and then trotted off to join the waiting party at the car.

It was a short temptation to kidnap the bug for my classroom, but a mantid has a more important job than scaring kids by eating other living bugs, one leg at a time.  That job is to make more mantids for keeping crops safe from aphids, even though that is not their solitary diet.  They will eat any animal that they can grab and hold, with aplomb and entitlement.  We did keep one, long ago,  that was fed crickets from the pet shop; she held the cricket upright, ate its head off, and then enjoyed the contents as held by the remaining exoskeleton, like a custard cone.  It was fascinating and bestial to observe, but, well, that's what they do, and do it well.

With our blueberry haul in the back of the car, we trundled back to suburbs then city, exchanging planned recipes for optimizing blueberry enchantment.  I ended up freezing two quart bags of berries with enough stored in the fridge for a week of eating out of hand.  Some things taste better if you have to actually go and get them by picking, pulling, digging, or plucking; besides, there is always the self-congratulatory harvest dance you do in your kitchen just before processing for storage.  By the end of the  washing and sorting, the dance becomes a soggy jiggle, and you are glad to flop down with a glass of tea and don't want to see another berry for days.  This predicament is also underscored if you are then too tired to homecook a meal and so order out, open a can, or head for a restaurant.  Sort of kills the hunting and gathering mythology if you then go out to a burger joint for a greasefest.   Well, so what?  There is room for fast food in my realm, especially if my feet are barking dixie.

But there is satisfaction in putting food up for later days.  Midwinter is livened up by not only the berries, for you can simply buy a bag of frozen ones anytime of year, but by the memory of the sun and multiple dots of blue that rolled ripely down into your bucket, of welcoming dogs and imperial cats, of the wave of corn silk and the attitude of six-legged royalty, who was ready to pop you in the snoot with a right hook.  I have wild leeks from late spring, sour cherries from mid-July, and will have made jarred applesauce in another week.  I can sleep, for I have summer held till a chilly winter day says Now.

It is almost midnight, darker than two hours ago for the sun is six hours away from rising.  That means it's 1 o'clock in the afternoon in Japan, tomorrow, where people are also walking paths, their footsteps taking them away from cities to farm stands, inhabited by Japanese farm dogs and cats.  Bless us all, life grows on a tree, delicious, sweet, and fleeting.  Sleep well, dream of pie pans.