We went blueberry picking last Thursday morning, 2 friends and I, at Eckart's Blueberry Farm in Dora, Missouri. Our favorite way to get there is down a narrow, dirt road, the kind of road where you really hope you don't meet someone coming the other way. We did once; it was a pickup, and they buzzed past us, laughing at our wide eyes, with all of about an inch to spare between us. They must have been locals.
We usually try to go the first part of June, when the berry farm first opens, but this year a cold virus had robbed me of energy and any desire to be away from home, so we went later, when I felt good again, and the picking wasn't quite as easy. But on the inside of the bushes, and down low and up high, there were still plenty of berries to be found.
A young family picked near us; their voices drifting over the tall bushes. The children sounded content, and the mother wise, if you can make such observations in a short span of time, and we were entertained as they sang with sweet, lilting voices. Then they moved to where we were picking and we met them; the girls were 4 and 6, and we became friends instantly, in a way that's only possible with young children.
We came back tired, but with a sense of accomplishment; the berries tucked safely in the back of the car will last us a good part of the year. And in December, when we're eating blueberry pie, we'll think of 2 little girls and a narrow dirt road on a fine summer day in late June.
