Blackberries

Picking blackberries

Well, I don’t know about raspberries, but I had blackberries the other day. To be honest, I had a pretty hilarious time picking them, I mean, I didn’t buy them, if you are thinking that, I just picked them myself and I was like “omg, I’ll have so many blackberries now, as there are so many of them on those bushes and stuff”, however, little did I know that after so many minutes of picking them, I still would not have many of them, because they are so small and you have to pick many of them to have many of them, however it’s really difficult to pick them all very quickly, of course, because as mentioned above, they are very small and some of them just splits and some of them doesn’t come off easily and stuff like that. So, when I thought that I had plenty of blackberries, I looked at my bag filled with them and saw that it was not that much and I just had to pick some more if I wanted them to be much more than they actually were.

So the other day we went to our vineyard. Well, it’s a vineyard and there are some other things, too. I mean, it’s pretty large and covers a great territory and there we grow some vines and we have grapes and there we have corn, too, and some apples and peaches and tomatoes and nuts and stuff like that. And there are some bushes on the edges outside, in fact, there are plenty of bushes, which are blackberry bushes and it’s the summer when they are ripen and people can eat them and everyone can eat them , I mean, whoever wants can eat them, because those bushes are not anyone’s, you know. They are not owned by anyone, so that I and anyone else can just go to those bushes and pick and eat as many blackberries as they want or can. There’s this canal going through the edges of the field, where others have vineyards and stuff, too, and there’s water going through that canal, which is used to water the plants on the whole territory and everyone uses that canal, of course, so, where the bushes are nearby that canal, the blackberries are larger and more, than in other places. Of course, that’s because of the water and in that drought outside there, they always need some water to be nearby, so that the fruit and everything else won’t dry up. So, when I went to the bushes to pick up blackberries, I found that, there were more blackberries, where the water was flowing, though I could only pick those ones that I could reach, and I should have been really careful, because there was this canal then and I could easily fall into it and that would have been pretty bad. Though the falling into the canal wouldn’t be really bad itself, but there were bushes, of course, and they had these spikes and if I fell on them, I would have been pretty badly injured in general. Well, I was really careful, if you want to know the truth. However, not every time one can be careful enough, not to get any injuries or whatever. My hands got all black and scratchedand so on and so forth and I could feel those spikes in my skin and then I used to try to get rid of them, but sometimes it was worse.

If you have every picked some blackberries or even raspberries, you will know how difficult that is, because those bushes have so many spikes and they are so small, but very bad, that you can’t really get rid of them and they just stay on your clothes and you can’t get out of there unless you have been bitten pretty badly or something like that. Or you should take each one of them really carefully and then come out of the bushes. In any case, you won’t come out of that thing without any scratches or blood or with your hands all black and stuff like that. Maybe you won’t see them all at once, but when you get home and wash your hands, you will see what you have done. Well, actually, it’s more like what those blackberry bushes have done, but it’s not really their fault, is it? it was you who got into those bushes by force and picked those blackberries and took them. There’s this saying about picking roses, it says that no one has picked roses without spikes. I remembered that saying while picking up those blackberries. Well, we always loved blackberries, me and my siblings. And there was this time, when there were blackberry bushes on our street. There were plenty of them and when they ripened, we just used to go out and pick them and eat them. There were no other kids around in general, I mean, of course there were some, but they didn’t really come out, or they came out just from time to time, so we had those blackberries just for ourselves and we were all happy with that. We even had this recipe of ours that we did. It was a cake that my aunt used to bake (well, she bakes that cake now, too) and then we would use those blackberries to eat it. this cake was the Zebra cake, I think you know that one, it’s just a biscuit with stripes that are black and white, of course, and she prepares that cake really well, I mean, it’s really soft and delicious, and then we would pick blackberries and make some chocolate glaze and sprinkle it on that cake and then put those blackberries on the top of the cakeand it tasted really good _ that kind of sweetness of the cake and the sourness of those blackberries. It was really great idea. It was our summer cake, I guess.

So, while I was picking those blackberries near our vineyard, my father was picking some corn, as we love to boil them and eat them like that. It’s very delicious and healthy, at the same time, and of course, it’s all natural product, as we grow them and stuff like that. I was walking and picking blackberries and then moving on to the next bush and everything and I just couldn’t stop picking them, because when I thought that I would stop and go back to the car, then I would see another place, where there were those black blackberries that looked so delicious, that I couldn’t leave them there and I just used to go to them and pick them. Some of them were really hard to resist not picking them. Meanwhile, I don’t know, how many minutes went. Well, I didn’t have a watch or my phone with me there and I couldn’t control the time, but it seemed to me that I was picking them for a very long time. Okay, not that long, but kind of long time. And then I thought, maybe my father didn’t know that I was picking blackberries and maybe he was searching for me, or maybe he was just sitting there waiting for me to come back and stuff like that, so that some time later I just decided to stop picking the blackberries and finally go back to our car. And there weren’t few blackberries in my bag, if you want to know the truth, so I was pretty satisfied with my “hunting” and went back to the car. It’s always more delicious when you eat fruit that was picked by you,if you ask me. So I ate those blackberries with much pleasure and, of course, everyone else ate them, too, I mean, who can resist not eating some fresh blackberries? Besides, they are very good for us and have many health benefits and, well, berries have many health benefits, in general, so that everyone should just eat them, if not often, every once in a while, at least. Though we don’t have that comfort much here, and so whenever there’s a chance of eating some berries, let that be raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries or whichever, we always try to eat them.

Blackberries’ Kompoti

This is a stewed fruit, it’s kind of sweet and has fruit in it and it tastes really good and you can save it for the winter and when you feel like it, you can open it and eat and drink that fruit. So we usually prepared those kompotis every summer and we have this huge cellar or Marani as we call it and there are these shelves, where there are many glass jars and those jars are used to store stewed fruit and jams and jellies and all the other stuff. Well, actually, my grandmother used to prepare all those stuff and now I wonder, how could she do all those things, because the place is pretty large and, imagine, how many jars there are and they all needed to be washed really thoroughly and then dried and then get sterilized and things like that. It was a pretty heavy work for anyone, of course. So, we used to have blackberries kompoti in winter and we were like always waiting for winter to come, because they didn’t really let us have kompoti until winter. Well, to be honest, it was not really winter, I mean, we could open kompoti jar in November, I guess, and we would eat those blackberries and drink the juice and stuff like that and we were all happy and stuff. Everyone loved blackberries kompoti and peach kompoti. Those two were the most opened ones and that blackberries kompoti was over in just some weeks, I guess. Though, it was not as many as peaches, if you want to know the truth. Well, peaches were plenty, as peaches were more efficient and we could buy them and prepare kompotis with them and when they were cut into pieces, they became even more and those kompoti jars were even more, you know what I’m saying. So, peaches kompoti jars were usually the most common ones in our Marani and they lasted longer, though they were opened in every two days, I guess. That kompoti has a great taste and you just have to love it, there’s no other way! My grandmother uses to prepare kompoti with half the jar filled with fruit pieces and half of it full of water. That way, when the jar is opened, everyone can enjoy the kompoti, I mean, some love the fruit pieces, for example, my father, and some love just the juice, like my brother, and so everyone has just that piece of the kompoti which they want and that’s a great combination. My neighbor fills the whole jar with fruit slicesand there’s just a little water, because she said that she loves the fruit pieces and not the juice. Well, it’s all individual, of course, and you can prepare that kompoti just the way you want it to be, I mean, is not that the purpose of you preparing something? _ to eat or drink it as you would like it to be and not for someone else. Well, of course, you can be preparing something for someone else, I am not saying that, but when you are making something for yourself, you just try to make it just the way you would like it to be. 

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