When it comes to iconic summer time traditions, strawberry picking ranks ahead of lawn mowing but below tan lines. Naturally, I speak not of selecting grocery store berries but the U-Pick variety. After all, a little sweat equity makes all things sweeter — even the red, fleshy accessory fruit of the solon-bearing plant of the rose family.
So this past Sunday, with plastic buckets in tow, we stopped to pick berries as evening settled around a family farm off M-37. A polite and articulate teen-ager (three words not usually found in the same sentence) directed us to the rows, upon rows of strawberry plants. Our four-year-old daughter was overwhelmed with delight. She was given a half-gallon tub and one rule: pick only the red ones. In fact, I think that was the title of a Norman Rockwell painting of a little girl in a strawberry patch, or perhaps it was called pick only the red ones bruised, battered and half-eaten by birds.
"Mmm ... tastes like a strawberry," noted a chirpy voice behind a green bush. I smiled, but then questioned the choice of words taste and like.
To my surprise, in less than an hour we picked a flat and half of berries without breaking a sweat or swatting away swarms of West Nile mosquitoes. Ella even picked a few edible red ones. Only one problem: how do you squeeze 16 pounds of strawberries into a five pound space in the refrigerator?
As berry picking memories go, two thoughts come to mind — fire ants and allergy shots.
Every summer our family would make an excursion out into the wilds of our hunting property to pick pints of blueberries or raspberries. After much prodding, my mother would rouse my sister and I out of our school's out slumber. Once out in the elements, I did what any other nine-year-old boy would do: pick token berries, pick on older sister, pick up stick, pick fight with giant fire ant hill. While I realized these tiny insects could lift 50 times their own weight, who knew they could bite through jeans — Toughskins no less.
It was also while wild berry picking that my mother decided to break the news to me that I would be on the receiving end of allergy shots. I still wonder why she waited to tell me about my impending injection until I was surrounded by flora, fauna and my cousins Mark and Ryan. I stood there, mouth agape, like a painting model for Edvard Munch. Unfortunately, a few hours later two nurses and a doctor were chasing me around the examination table like a Benny Hill skit. I'm sure the fire ants had a good ironic laugh.
The only other time I feared for my life while berry picking was 13 years ago in the Upper Peninsula. My wife and I were living in Sault Ste. Marie and our landlord at the time shared a secret blueberry spot. He provided us cryptic directions like turn left at the oak tree with bark in the shape of Ronald Reagan's face. I half-expected to be blindfolded and tossed in the back of a pickup truck driven by a man reeking of turnip pasties who would dump us off on some two-track outtake from "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre".
Somehow I stumbled across the right tree, made a left, and found the spot. Before stepping out of the car, I followed our landlord's last direction: honk the horn. In theory this noise would prevent a run-in with a blueberry-seeking bear. And I don't mean Yogi and his pic-a-nic basket. I gave a halfhearted honk since I worried the sound really served as a Pavlovian dinner bell for some bruin. I was equally convinced that some gold-tooth codger would jump out of the bushes brandishing a shotgun loaded with rock salt, singing the grade school version of "This Land is My Land".
That was the one — and thus far only — time I picked berries with the car engine running.
Of course processing berries goes hand-in-hand with picking said fruit. As always, our eyes were bigger than our freezer capacity. We contemplated canning but decided against the whole boiling water-curious four year old scenario. Then there is the whole botulism thing. After all, as Garrison Keillor wrote regarding home canning, "one little mistake could mean a jar full of botulism - Clostridium botulinum - which is Latin for 'pushing up daises'". Then again, I survived countless butter, peanut butter and canned strawberry jelly sandwiches at Grandma Scofield's house. She even put a few Ball jar bread and butter pickles on our plate — just to tempt fate.
For now, I'm trying not to burn out my taste buds on strawberries. While it's easy to take all this freshness for granted, trying buying a quart in January. Nothing helps weather the winter of our discontent like the fruits of summer labor.
Grand Traverse Herald editor Garret Leiva can be reached at 933-1416 or email gleiva@gtherald.com