Berries!

I made a delicious discovery as I took Toby for an early morning walk on Friday. Raspberries! For weeks I have been watching the wild brambles go from bare, to being loaded with hard, green, and then pink and red berries. At last, some have turned dark purple. Even though we were in a bit of a hurry to get Toby's "business" taken care of so I could head off to work, I had to stop and pick a few. Everyone knows that the first berries of the season are the most delicious, and I wasn't about to miss out. Later today when it is not so hot out I'll go pick a bowl full. The only down side to enjoying free wild raspberries is that many of them are surrounded by poison ivy or poison oak. Chiggers--those invisible buggers that burrow under your skin and make you itch like crazy--seem to hang out around raspberries, too. However, the wild berries are tasty enough to make wearing long pants, long sleeves, and bug spray worth it, even with temperatures in the 80's.

It is somewhat of a tradition for me to make a raspberry cream pie each year. However, since I have become a devoted weight watcher, I think I will work on finding a lower calorie way to enjoy these scrumptious treats. Suggestions welcome!

Finding the raspberries reminded me that last weekend I picked a couple of quarts of sour cherries and put them in the refrigerator to pit later. What happened is I completely forgot about them. I have yet to check on them; I am so afraid I'll find a moldy mess of cherries representing wasted effort and wasted time. Even though I am basically an organized person, I just have not been able to find a way to fully balance working full time and taking care of such a large yard, the house, and so many animals while still leaving time for other things like eating, sleeping, and sitting down for a couple of minutes without feeling guilty about all that is not getting done. Oh well--I do what I can do, and keep looking for ways to simplify. The garden boxes are a good example. It is so great to enjoy wonderful home grown vegetables without all of the weeding, tilling, and hoeing. I'm sure I'll keep discovering better ways to do a lot of things, or learn how to let them go.