Black Raspberries

I have a ridiculously short and easy commute into work, a little over two miles. I usually try to ride my bike this time of year. I have ridden past this spot a hundred times, and the other day looked down to see brightly colored berries on the side of a short hill alongside the road. I parked my bike to investigate, and before I knew it I was full from eating so many delicious black raspberries like it was nature's Halloween candy.

It's strange how difficult it is to get over the feeling of embarrassment foraging for food along a common commuter-line, it feels horribly uncivilized. This is the last place on the planet anyone would ever go. It's a god awful pit full of prickers, poison ivy, and jewelweed (poison ivy's antidote) where you are on display with cars driving overhead watching you sweat and toil. But whatever. It's worth fighting through the discomfort to get to enjoy this treasure, every day til it's gone. How much more convenience can you ask for? It's less than ten feet out of my way. And I can tell you this much, there is *no* competition for these berries. They are all mine.

One day I eat berries like I'm a bear fattening up for a long hibernating winter. Then, on my way home I pick the area clean and collect a pound to bring home. A few days later even more berries have ripened and I'm back at it, eating berries until I'm ready to burst. And again the next day, collecting a full two pounds to bring on a visit with friends for the weekend. All on an area not much bigger than a ping pong table.

As I ride away from the berry patch with seeds stuck in my teeth, I spit them out along the road. By doing so I can't help but wonder... Am I planting a giant garden right now? After a few years of this will there be black raspberries growing all along my entire commute? It's amazing to think that foraging is a natural and wild form of cultivation. Consuming and producing are one and the same. Quite unlike consuming anything in a civilized way.

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