JULY 15th: Forbidden Fruit

IMG00587.jpg, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

When we drove from bush to bush on our berry forage on Saturday, we came upon the last bush on our trip which I had talked up. "This one has the sweetest berries, I swear." We had no sooner picked our first berry off this bush, which was growing, just like all the others on the side of the road apparently wild, when a man in a red sports car pulled up beside our car. He shouted at me in the drivers seat, "I didn't plant those berries so strangers could stop and pick them, I planted them for the birds!" At first, I thought he was joking, but the realized he was dead serious. We hightailed it out of there.

I was indignant for hours. "How, sir, are we supposed to differentiate the berry bush you planted from all the berry bushes that grow wild?"

"If the birds wanted your darn berries, that bush would have been picked clean in an instant. Birds can make light work of a single blackberry bush!"

Anyhow, everyday last week when I did my walk, I had to grab a handful of the forbidden fruit. I felt rebellious. I felt victorious. I felt sinful. I felt like Eve.