I should have known......

I had seen them on our walks but was not sure what exactly they were. I knew enough not to eat fruit from bushes if I didn’t know what it was. I must admit I felt kind of like Eve in the Garden. The fruit looked so good. The branches of the bushes hung heavy with ripening fruit, they swayed in the breeze and played coy with me. Looking at those bushes made my mouth water. I thought, “One taste wouldn’t hurt anything. Would it?” Then I saw her.

She was standing before one of the bushes popping the fruit into her mouth as though they were candy. She looked like a child eating blue licorice ice cream; her face and hands were covered in blue. I stood watching her for a moment before I realized that my mouth was open and I was staring in disbelief. I was agog at this grown woman yanking the precious fruit off the branches and stuffing them into her mouth, like a greedy child grabbing all the candy.

I slowly approached her. I was not sure if she noticed me watching her. Perhaps she didn’t’ care. They way she was attacking the bush she seemed uncontrollably intoxicated by the fruit. She seemed wild; mad with such fervor for the fruit!

I stood watching her from a short distance and then I got up enough courage to ask her what it was she eating. Approaching her from the side, because you never want to use the element of surprise with an unknown intoxicated person, I said, “Gee, those look really good! What are those?” She stopped, turned, and looked at me with her eyes wide. Those eyes of her were wild!! Apparently, from the look I received I did not understand the severity of the situation. I thought, “Oh dear Lord, I’m a gonner. She is going to kill me here and now.” This woman with the wild eyes and covered in blue fruit explained the situation in one word, “Saskatoons!!!!”

Thanking her and backing away slowly I walked quickly back to campsite and exclaimed to Alan that the fruit on the bushes were Saskatoons. Gathering up a container and beckoning him to help me harvest some of the berries I ventured out to gather some of those coy little berries.

Alan and I must have spent at least half an hour gathering Saskatoons. Our hands were blue and sticky from the delicate fruit. The berries were so beautiful and ripe that they literally fell off and burst at the slightest touch. So delicious!!! We gathered enough for a pie within that half hour. Would you like your slice a la mode???