Celebrating the Ordinary: Day Seven
Today I have been picking blackberries to turn into a fruit crumble.
20 thoughts on “Celebrating the Ordinary: Day Seven”
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Barbara Jacoby on Monday Motivation Editor on Weekly Round-Up Carolyn Thomas on Weekly Round-Up nancyspoint on Weekly Round-Up Editor on Weekly Round-Up
Well, I had to send you this 🙂 P.S. I am officially a day behind, but it’s all because of your brown bread and where it led me. “see you” later. xx
“Blackberry Picking” by Seamus Heaney
Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer’s blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full,
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not.
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*Sigh” Just perfect!
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Picking blackberries — yum! That’s one of my favorite things to do this time of year. Ordinary to the average observer, extraordinary to those who taste the picking right from the vine. Wish I could get a taste of your fruit crumble. xox
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My day 7 post is now published: http://janhasak.com/blog/?p=2505. Thanks a million for the prompt. I don’t think our writing will ever be the same as a result. xox
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Lovely image and great to read the Heaney poem today – thanks Yvonne.
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I wonder if blackberries are similar to mulberries? My brother and I used to play in a sandbox underneath our grandparents’ mulberry trees/bushes. That’s why I named my publishing company Mulberry Hill Press.
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I love the name Mulberry Hill Press – it is wonderful Lois.
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Very nice – I can’t believe I’ve missed an entire week of these ordinary celebrations. People have been posting the most lovely things in the blogosphere. I’ll just count my home blessing post as a celebration of the simple and wonderful. Kudos for sparking the wave of light-hearted posts.
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Hi Catherine…we will just have to run this exercise again and you can join in 🙂
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For the last few months, I’ve been buying blackberries. Until recently, they were so sweetj, but now they’re tart. Either way, they’re great with cereal and yogurt.
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What a kick of nostalgia – it is so long since I have seen a blackberry bush! In my childhood in Scotland, blackberry bushes were everywhere, whereas raspberry bushes were less prolific. It used to be such a temptation to pick the blackberries before they were properly ripe because we were so impatient to eat them!
I am also officially late – again connectivity is slow, but my images are sitting ready to be placed gently on the blogosphere…
Thank you so much and do enjoy the crumble 🙂
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OK so last night I baked an olallieberry pie… (note I said baked, not made!) We have this particular pie shipped to us frozen from a town on California’s Central Coast, then you pop it in the oven for an hour. Anyway, I just finished eating another slice tonight, and then I came upon this post about fresh berries! The S Factor strikes again. I have come to realize that everything is, indeed, interrelated at all times!
Thanks for this one-week prompt, Marie. It was the perfect amount of time (not as overwhelming as the WEGO challenge!) and it was simple and creative. Thank you.
Welcome back!
xoxo
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The pie sounds intriguing Renn..I must google it. And I love how you conined the S Factor phrase which was such a fun part of this week to observe 🙂
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We call them brambles in Scotland. Is that only a Scottish thing? In crumble they are simply divine. Thanks again for this challenge and the wonderful fruits it has grown. Love the poem. What a way to start Sunday! Xx
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We called them brambles too 🙂
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Oh I love your play on words Audrey…how clever 🙂
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Hope the crumble was scrummy!!
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It was Liz 🙂
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