Picking Berries Makes Me Feel Like a Warrior

Summer is in full swing. I have been busy picking blackberries, red raspberries, green beans, zucchini, lettuce, and herbs and flowers. I made blackberry jam, and with the red raspberries, my friend Heidi and I have made 10 gallons of wine. The wine won’t be ready to consume until November. We added homemade apple juice I had made last year to the raspberry wine. We added half the sugar the recipe called for to the first five gallons of wine we made and it started to ferment immediately. It was brewing and foamingand spitting out fermentation the first week. It was so alive. It was amazing to watch and it looked like witches brew. Heidi’s partner, Scott is helping us make the wine. He has the equipment and has made his own beer before. He said that it was scary how rapidly the first batch of wine started to ferment. He said it was fermenting way too fast. The second five gallons we made this past weekend. We added one-third the amount of sugar called for in the recipe. This last batch of wine is fermenting at a more normal rate.

We have so many mosquitoes this year that I have feel as if I have to put armor on when I go out and pick the berries. The canes are thorny and at first I was going out and picking away with my arms and legs unprotected. I got so scratched up that it looked like a cat had attacked me. Another problem, besides the mosquitoes and thorns is there is hive with a nest of wasps buzzing on a cane. The hive is the size of softball and is gray in color the yellow and black wasps buzzing around it. I only discovered the hive yesterday. My sister, Joann came to pick raspberries and she pointed out the hive. I had been walking right past it and brushing against it. I didn’t see it as the raspberry leaves hid it. It is a mean looking entity.

My husband Tom went to town today to get some spray to kill the wasps. I have been stung three times by the wasps. The worse sting I had was on my stomach. It really hurt. It is still red, but I put a healing salve on it that I made with calendula flowers and the pain went away. My ten-year-old son, Timmy got stung two weeks ago by a wasp while picking raspberries and he hasn’t been out in the raspberry patch since. Joann called me last night after she went home and said she had a bad reaction when she got stung lastyear by a wasp. The doctor told her to avoid getting stung because she has such a bad reaction. I know that these stings can be fatal to some people. I am lucky that they are not fatal to Timmy or me. I can’t wait to get rid of those stinging wasps. I was picking berries this morning, but now that I know where the hive is, I don’t like being out there. The berries are incredible this year. It is a very bountiful year. I am not sick of eating pint after pint of berries, which I get to do each day. I will be glad when I don’t have to pick them every day, but I will miss eating them fresh. I made syrup with some of the berries and will attempt to make some jelly tomorrow. It is ninety degrees outdoors right now. I am going to put on my armor, of long pants, long sleeved shirt, socks, and boots and tie a white towel on my head and go out and pick raspberries right now. This is the best time of day, when the mosquitoes are not so active. I do feel like a warrior getting these berries.