GOBBLING BLACKBERRIES

"Blackberries seize the land, gobbling acres, blanketing banks, consuming abandoned farmhouses, and their Studebakers, and anything left alone in the rain for five minutes, or longer..." 

-Robert Michael Pyle

Forecast for September blackberries. Sun . Sun. With a side of fluffy.....

And blackberries. Farm blackberries. Roadside blackberries.  The colour of ripened chives.

Easiest thing to devour: Good vanilla ice cream, slathered in squashed blackberries, turning the ice cream purple red.

I stuff it into an ancient wine glass. The company wine goblets, turned into bowls.

With a lack of rain these days, the grapes are ripening like crazy. 

Along with the  blackberries on the hill that hang over the fence , over the dying daisies.

I've  even seen the racoons scarf them down. The blackberries. Not the daisies....

I 

I had one small graham crust pie shell. Usually I would make this for company. But this year, no company.  So I piled it with Bird's custard, whip cream and blackberries.

My mother would make this every September. A small pie for just the two of us. When school was just going back in session.  I'd come home  after a long hot day, and find her taking slivers from the pie pan. The innards oozing cream and custard. Berries falling onto our plates, as if they knew their fate was sealed.

We would sometimes have pie and tea on the steps of the old house. Just like that. Late in the day. In September when it was hot and then cold. Dinner would get lost and forgotten. The sky would turn. And there was still pie to devour.

The summer pots piled at the base of the steps. Waiting to be put away.

After pie. Of course. After the sunset.

"I ate mythology and dreamt..." -Yusaf Komunyakaa

Found this Peach Blackberry pie in the little freezer the other day. From last year. Amazing what you can find when you dig deep enough.

Nothing like fresh peaches combined with blackberries.  The flavour  is fresh and tangy and sweet.

Blackberries. September's  calling.

"And then Sam set to work, washing fresh blackberries that sat on the counter,She headed back into the backyard, Blackberries and raspberries grew wild and thick in the brambles that sat at the edge of the woods.." -Viola Shipman (the Recipe Box)

Photographs 2020

                                    CAT Plants on duty.....Rona and Spencer