Monday, July 02, 2012

Raspberry lessons

I love the abundance of summer. I love the idea of pulling food from my backyard and making something super tasty with it. Standing in the hot sun, getting all scratched up trying to reach raspberries isn't the best thing to do, but it does have a bit of zen to it.


Often in the raspberry bushes, large spiders spin crazy webs just over the berries. Targeting the bugs, I guess, or, if really ambitious, maybe a small bird... hmmmm. What you learn as you pick, though, is that those apparently cut off berries can be snagged from a different angle, without having to touch any web.

Raspberry picking, like strawberry picking, involves patience and painstaking care, looking under each leaf, high and low on the vines. It struck me, as I picked the other day, that I need to approach problems in life with the same persistence - to take a new perspective when faced with a wall of spiderweb, and find the angle that's open.

Does beat hitting your head against a wall.