Monday, July 22, 2013

Chiggers, Briars, Stink Bugs - the Price of Jam

Hollyhill, Kentucky
July 22, 1964

Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. Well, from Holly County anyway. We, Dad and Aunt Love and I, actually live outside the city limits. We don't live on a farm exactly, but there are farms all around us. Some of those farms have plenty of blackberry bushes on them and it's blackberry season. 
 
Do you like blackberries? I do. Lots, but I'm not all that crazy about picking them. But as Aunt Love is always telling me, an able bodied person who doesn't work shouldn't be wanting to eat. And I definitely want to eat. She says that's somewhere in the Bible too. So if Aunt Love hands me the picking bucket and tells me to go berry picking, I go berry picking. I do love blackberry jam on a hot biscuit with butter fresh churned by one of the women out at church. 
 
But even though I love that jam, picking berries is not all fun and games. Blackberries grown on briars. The best berries are always in the middle of the worst briars! Blackberries are bushy and there's no way to be absolutely certain a snake might not be lurking under those bushes. As if that's not bad enough, what about the spiders? There are always spiderwebs in the blackberries guarding the very best berries. Those big old spiders can have those berries. I'm not putting my hand anywhere close to them! And you have June bugs. I'm not afraid of June bugs, but their major whirring noise when you scare them away from a berry can give a girl a start. Sometimes there will be three or four June bugs on the same berry. It's like a helicopter starting up when they all take off together. 

But June bugs are better than stink bugs. When one of them gets on a berry, it's pretty much ruined for eating off the bush. Trouble is, you can't tell the stink bug has been there until you put the berry in your mouth. Big yuck! Then the only, the very only thing you can do after the stink bug taste is on your tongue is pop another blackberry into your mouth as quickly as possible. Of course, you have to hope the stink bug wasn't on that one too. Don't think I've ever eaten two stink bug flavored blackberries in a row and I hope I never do!! Talk about spoiling the anticipated yummy berry flavor. 

Saturday I got a gallon of berries. Took a long time. Zeb lay in the shade and whined off and on to remind me how hot it was. He was right! It was hot! Dogs don't like blackberry jam. I'm beginning to think twice about whether I do.

When I got the berries home, I had to wash them and get them ready for Aunt Love to make the jam. Then I had to hover nearby because well, Aunt Love is getting forgetful. She puts on a pot of blackberry jam - can't you almost smell it - and promptly forgets it. Last week she forgot to stir it and it boiled up and over the top of the pan down into the burners. What a mess! So Dad says I have to watch the blackberry jam pot boiling. That way I can either remind Aunt Love to check it or stir it myself. I hate stirring it myself. I always get burned. You see when the jam is boiling down and beginning to get thick, it pops in big ploppy circles like those pools out in Yellowstone. Those pops can land hot blackberry juice on your hand. Ouch! But that does mean it's almost done. Aunt Love tests to see if it's done by putting a dollop of the jam on a cold saucer and sticking it in the freezer compartment. Once it's had a minute or two to chill, Aunt Love looks at it to see if it's done. All I can tell is that it's purple. But Aunt Love can tip that saucer up and tell whether to keep cooking or stop cooking by how that jam sample sits on the plate. Or doesn't sit on the plate. At least she used to be able to do that. Now it's anybody's guess what she'll remember or what she'll forget. So far she hasn't forgotten the first Bible verse. I guess that's good if she didn't always hunt some out of her memory to try to keep me in line. And after I pretended to know about jam sliding on a plate and got popped by that jam juice while helping her. If she reads this, she'll give me a hard look and ask who plans on eating that jam.

I've got to go now and think about a way to stop these chiggers from itching. How about you? Did you ever get chiggers while blackberry picking?

  

8 comments:

  1. So many memories stirred like that blackberry jam! I remember all these moments, except the forgetful ones. I used to love to eat the foam Grandma skimmed off the top of the blackberry jam. And I have never had any jam so good as that freshly-made jam.

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    1. Jocie here - I love that blackberry foam too, Betty. Yum!! Glad you liked coming along with me to the blackberry patch. Hope you didn't take home any chiggers. :)

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  2. Well, I've never had homemade blackberry jam, but it looks delicious-esp. if I could have some of it on one of Aunt Love's biscuit,yummy!

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    1. Jocie here. I'm so excited to have you drop by, Janie. You can come and have breakfast with us any time. Aunt Love makes biscuits most every day. She hasn't forgotten how to do that. She just forgets to take them out of the oven at the right time, so if Dad or I don't pay attention sometimes the biscuits are extra crunchy.

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  3. Ooooh! Those chiggers do hurt. Vaseline will kill them. I used to help my mother pick blackberries but later in life wasn't willing to fight the chiggers. LOL I do love all things blackberry tho. Cobbler, pie, jam, fried pie, and, just blackberries in a bowl with some sugar and cream. Oh my! This is making me so hungry. And, That's what we are when we are younger, Jocie, helpers or go- getters. Gotta go but will visit you later.
    Maxie

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    1. Jocie here. My chiggers don't hurt, but boy, do they itch. And they get in the worst places, if you know what I mean. Places you can't really scratch when other people are around. I'll have to try the vaseline. I never ate blackberries with sugar and cream. I'll just take mine with sugar. I'm really glad you stopped by, Maxie.

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  4. I had forgotten the chigger bites but yes, i've had plenty of them. Also remember going blackberry picking with my mamaw and that wonderful blackberry jam she made and those blackberry cobblers. mmmmmmmmmmmmm

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    1. Jocie here. Oh, Sharma, I hate chiggers. But somebody told me to put vaseline on them at night and you know what. That sort of worked. I'm trying it from now on. Blackberry cobblers are the best. I'm going to see if Aunt Love will make us one for supper. Even if it isn't Sunday. Yumm.

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Jocie loves to know what you're thinking about your visits to Hollyhill.