Now, I use the term “homesteader” to refer not to someone who lives self-sufficiently, but rather to someone who finds the idea appealing, as long as it’s optional. Nothing takes the charm out of homesteading like the threat of starvation.
Last week, when I discovered an enormous patch of black raspberries on our property, my homesteader instincts saw a major fruit opportunity. I figured I’d pick a few bushels and put up a year’s supply of jam. Homesteaders love doing stuff like that.
But picking berries off the vine, it turns out, is slightly more involved than picking a jar of Smuckers off the shelf. I took one step toward the sea of fat, ripe fruits and roused a cloud of mosquitoes that lifted off in formation and swarmed me with military precision.
I ran for the house and returned minutes later, slathered with a layer of Black Forest DEET, Now Enhanced with Even More Noxious Chemicals. That slowed the mosquitoes down but left the door open for all kinds of crawling insects.
I see now that wearing shorts and a tank top was a mistake. No matter how hot and humid the weather, thrashing through the undergrowth in pursuit of black raspberries demands protective clothing. In fact, if you have worked yourself up to a socially acceptable level of tick anxiety, a full haz-mat suit is recommended.
Sure, you can reach for the berries without much trouble. But when you pull your hand back, you hear the metallic zing of hundreds of tiny switchblades popping out in unison, and suddenly there are thorns everywhere, slashing at your wrists and hands and legs, causing you to shriek in pain and reflexively throw your precious berries high into the air. It lowers the yield considerably.
A friend of mine assures me that the safest way to pick berries is in hip waders. Leaving aside the matter of heat exhaustion, I reject this idea. First, hip waders do not flatter the female figure. It’s the reason so few women take up fly fishing.
Second, hip waders just invite bugs to fall into them. I have a hard enough time forcing myself to climb around the underbrush while creatures try to lay eggs on me or burrow into my skin. The last thing I need is a few disgruntled spiders scurrying around in an enclosed space that contains several important parts of my body.
For what seemed like hours, I picked and screamed and threw berries in the air. By the time the third earwig fell down my shirt, I considered abandoning the mission. But my homesteader’s innate practicality told me that a pantry full of homemade jam outweighs the trauma of a bug or two in one’s bra (assuming homesteaders wear bras), so I persevered.
Twenty minutes after I started, I staggered out of the woods, sweaty, wild-eyed, bloodied and bitten, looking like a plane-crash survivor who’s been stranded on a desert island for days. I didn’t pick bushels of berries, but I did get almost two cups. And I was grateful for that much.
After a brief session with a bottle of antiseptic and some Band-Aids, I turned to my first attempt at making jam. This is basically just boiling berries and sugar until they thicken up. Who knew?
Yes, there’s a thermometer involved, to make sure your mixture reaches just the right temperature (214 degrees for raspberry jam, which I learned is also the temperature at which a bubbling fruit-sugar mixture, when accidentally splattered on the cat, will cause the animal to levitate before exiting the kitchen like a bullet from a gun). But after the challenge of acquiring the berries in the first place, the process was fairly anticlimactic. Of course, at that point, pretty much anything short of a house fire would have been.
I’m pleased to report that the jam was delicious and what’s left of it goes on the list of foods I’m storing up for winter. So far, I’ve got 7 onions and 12 carrots. Add one 8-ounce jar of black-raspberry jam to that and I’d say we’re in great shape.
