Boys and Blackberries

Wild blackberries are both a pest and a blessing in Oregon. They take over any vacant area if left uncontrolled, smothering old machinery and small buildings and anything else in their way.
But every August they produce a crop of delicious berries, nestled among millions of vicious thorns, free to anyone brave enough to pick them.

I’ve found this is a good enterprise for Ben and Steven, who like to wear jeans and rubber boots, go exploring, and attempt brave feats. So every so often I send them out and they return with an ice cream bucket or two of berries, which I have been turning into pies, cobblers, and a number of jars of pie filling. Their best picking spot is about half a mile away, across the fescue field, along the railroad tracks.

The other day I realized the berry season is about at its end and it’s going to start raining soon, so after supper I sent the boys on one last expedition, letting them out of doing dishes as a bonus.

An hour or so later they came back, but with only a third of a bucket of berries. Uh, well, you see, it’s like this. They picked a full bucket of berries, plus a third, and then they climbed the fence back into the field and headed home and Ben was like, "Hey, big wide-open field--let’s see if we can walk 200 steps with our eyes closed!"

Steven traversed his 200 steps safely and opened his eyes to see that Ben had veered off north toward Substation Drive and a fence. He yelled, but Ben just figured Steven had tripped or something, and shortly after at step 181 Ben crashed into the fence and spilled his entire bucket of berries irretrievably into the dirt and straw. Yeah.

When I heard this doleful tale I opened my mouth to say something, then shut it, then opened it again, then shut it again.

The boys saved their hides at this point by quickly saying all the proper things such as, "We know it was really stupid, we're sorry, we’ll never try that again, we’ll pick more berries tomorrow."

Then Paul did not improve matters by saying in his wise-father voice, "See, what you have to do is look around and make sure there’s no fence within 200 steps in any direction before you try that."

My silent tongue was loosed at this point in a shrill, "What??? That’s not the POINT!!! The point is that you THINK ABOUT THE CARGO IN YOUR HANDS BEFORE YOU DO SOMETHING THAT STUPID AND YOU DON’T WALK WITH YOUR EYES SHUT WITH A BUCKET OF BLACKBERRIES IN YOUR HANDS, FENCE OR NO FENCE!!!!!!""

The guys all looked at me like, "Poor Mom, off on one of her rants again."

I called my friend Arlene for comfort. She was soothing and wonderful. My boys are nice, she said, and smart, and they really are going to grow up. Then she told me some comforting stories about her own children, and said,

Quote of the Day:
"I’m so sick of worryin’ about my kids!"
(Me too)

And Paul also had this wisdom for me:
2nd Quote of the Day:
"Well, that’s one of the disadvantages of having creative kids."