Wednesday, August 29, 2007

A Curse or Blessing?


If you have lived in western Washington for any amount of time you will probably be quite familiar with blackberry vines. These persistent plants have been known to sprout just about anywhere and thrive in the most inconvenient places. Before you know it, a small blackberry vine can explode into a great thorny bush and be the cause for great sweat—and sometimes even bloodshed—trying to remove it. If this were the whole story about blackberry vines, I think that they most certainly would be voted as Washington’s most disliked plant


But, before you get too upset about this seemingly noxious weed, you must taste a handful of large, sweet, juicy, blackberries.


Although blackberries can be quite problematic when growing in the wrong place, we thoroughly enjoy the blackberries we have on the farm because they are growing in a great place.



Along the fence bordering our property, great mounds of blackberries grow and each year right about this time yield a bountiful reward of huge, sweet blackberries. Thanks to the horses and cows, these mounds of blackberries are kept trimmed back so that we can actually reach the black bounty without falling prey to the thorns. After several hours of picking, we will come back with enough blackberries to freeze for the winter, as well as to make into an after dinner pie.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey! I saw a link to your blog from TheWilkesTeam.com. Great site! I love blackberries but where I live here in West Virginia there is not very many plants that produce well. I'll have to stop by later!

Benjamin E. said...

Hello Phillip everyone else in the Bradrick family! I found your blog recently and I've greatly enjoyed looking through it and seeing what you all have be up to of late.

The photography on this blog is very well done! My complements to photographer.

Ah yes, good old blackberries. When I was younger we lived at a house where there was a large patch of blackberries back in the woods along a field. This blackberry patch ran along the top of a ridge and our family fondly referred to it as "Torture Hill" for obvious reasons. :-) Much pain was experienced on that hill but many great memories were created as well (oh, and the blackberries were great too!).

Josiah and I have recently taken up photography and we've recently started posting some of our pictures online at firstwatch.blogspot.com. Please stop by and see us sometime if you wish!

Take care and God bless,
Benjamin E.