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Picking Blueberries

Written 2-6-96

I was about 13 years old when my parents went blueberry picking one day. This was no small deal, as they would go to Lac du Flambeau for the entire day. This was a long way to travel at that time. Sometimes, if the berries were good, they would even pitch a home-

made tent and stay overnight, so they could pick some more in the morning. Many are the times they would come home with blueberries in two wash tubs, which meant that we would have to spend hours picking out all the debris so that Mother could can the berries. Dad had made himself a blueberry picker, which made picking easier, but it also picked all the brush, including the green berries. Later on, this type of picker was outlawed, and I can certainly see why.

On this particular day, Dorothy (one of my older sisters) and I were elected to stay at home to take care of things. The rest of the family went along. We had to tend to the evening chores, and do the milking, -by hand of course.

At this time we had a sick cow, Molly, and Dad had taken her out of the barn and tied her by the hay barn. We were told that we should watch her and give her water. In the course of the afternoon, we noticed Molly lie down. Since she had been standing, we thought that she had gotten sicker. Afraid that she might die, we tried to get her to stand up again, but she wouldn't. So the two of us tried to lift her. Of course we were not successful, and later that day the cow died. Our parents didn't come home that night, so all night we worried about letting that cow die, as if we could do anything to stop it! When they came home the next day and heard the news, they didn't blame us and all was soon forgotten. I wonder if they didn't actually expect Molly to die. That was probably the reason Dad took her out of the barn and tied her up outside.

I still like blueberries today, even though we had many negative experiences with them. In 1988 when I toured Nova Scotia, I found out that this was blueberry country. So I took advantage of that and had my fill of blueberry muffins, pies, coffee cakes, and torts. Before I left there, I bought a blueberry cookbook, which had many scrumptious blueberry recipes. I seldom use it now as it contains all those luscious recipes which are a "no-no". However, once in awhile I treat myself to one of them!

During the years 1975-1985 I made many trips with my husband to Detroit to visit his brother and wife, Walt and Emma. Each time we went blueberry picking in the area and came home with many pounds of cultured berries. These were promptly put in the freezer for pies and muffins in the future. I still have some of them, and every so often, I bake some of those good old blueberry muffins.