There are certain childhood memories that are iconic. They hold an exalted place in your collective remembrances that, when you really analyze them objectively, they probably don't really warrent. They may be (and usually are) memories from the more ancient of times, the primordial regions of your mental notepad - times when, perhaps the lack of abundant reference material allowed for an exaggerated sense of wonder or importance. Sometimes, however, these vaulted memories are of events yet to transpire.
L and N had been talking for months about all the fun they were going to have in Maine, so confident of this were they that they might as well have been using the past tense. Two items tied for the title of "most fun they certainly had in Maine at some future point:" 1) spotting a moose, and 2) picking blueberries. As future blog entries certainly have made clear, only one of these iconic memories would have the guts and common decensy to actually stand up and occur.
Once we'd slept enough to justify sitting upright again we grabbed some buckets, kissed Mimi and Grammy Betty goodbye, hopped into the white wheeled wonder, and followed Grampy down to Grammy Betty's farm about 5 miles on the other side of town. Grammy has six or eight of the most transendent blueberry bushes. The blueberries that take up residence on these bushes, like their pre-fabbricated picking memories, seem to deny the laws of science, making mockery of the space-time continuum. They are enormous, the size of small grapes, and rediculously copious. They seem to have found an alternate dimension in which to expand and swell and fill all available space. I'm sure we always just time it right and happen to be in Maine at the peak of the season, but every time I've been up there since the bushes were put in, they have been awash in a sea of blue. It's like one blueberry got on Twitter and tweeted "Everyone at Grammy's house - STAT!" and next thing you know you've got a blueberry flash mob. A blueberry rave.
Blueberry riots.
We contended with the bushes for probably an hour or more, coordinating our attacks and filling several 5-gallon buckets with fruity purple casualties, but dispite our sizeable collection prisoners of war, the bushes admitted to no heavy losses, sending from that alternate blueberry dimension a seemingly endless supply of troops to the front. Eventually bored with such easy pickings, the kids moved on to scaling Grammy's apple trees and tossing down mounds of small, sour, buggy apples. N, feeling the irresistible urge to quantify and classify, informed us later that he picked one hundred and eleven or maybe one hundrend and twelve. Another quick jaunt with a box cutter through an overgrown former cow-pasture yielded an armful of rhubarb stalks. We pretty much had Vitamin C covered for the entire trip.
After our fruit picking frenzy was exhausted we took a walk down one of Grampy's logging roads deep into his woods. The kids were all a-buzz at the prospect of seeing a moose, but still had the wherewithall to be prepared in the event of a ravenous bear attack. To protect against this contingency they loaded their arms with the fruits of their apple picking labors, convinced that these abundant sour, wormy apples would distract any wild, blood-thirsty creature, redirecting their mad cravings for the flesh of small children in a more vegetarian direction. Alas no moose were to be seen, but any squirrel, chipmunk or other woodland creature unwise enough to rear its head as we went by was greeted with a hail of apples "for its dinner."
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| We don't want to scare the moose! |
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| No bears, but apples at the ready. |
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| Unsuspecting squirrel about to suffer an apple-induced concussion. |
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| Stacy feels a certain kinship with Maine. |
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| Left on the trail for any bears hot on our scent. |
There are certain childhood memories that are iconic. They hold an exalted place in your collective remembrances that, when you really analyze them objectively, they probably don't really warrent. They may be (and usually are) memories from the more ancient of times, the primordial regions of your mental notepad - times when, perhaps the lack of abundant reference material allowed for an exaggerated sense of wonder or importance. Sometimes, however, these vaulted memories are of events yet to transpire.
We contended with the bushes for probably an hour or more, coordinating our attacks and filling several 5-gallon buckets with fruity purple casualties, but dispite our sizeable collection prisoners of war, the bushes admitted to no heavy losses, sending from that alternate blueberry dimension a seemingly endless supply of troops to the front. Eventually bored with such easy pickings, the kids moved on to scaling Grammy's apple trees and tossing down mounds of small, sour, buggy apples. N, feeling the irresistible urge to quantify and classify, informed us later that he picked one hundred and eleven or maybe one hundrend and twelve. Another quick jaunt with a box cutter through an overgrown former cow-pasture yielded an armful of rhubarb stalks. We pretty much had Vitamin C covered for the entire trip.
After our fruit picking frenzy was exhausted we took a walk down one of Grampy's logging roads deep into his woods. The kids were all a-buzz at the prospect of seeing a moose, but still had the wherewithall to be prepared in the event of a ravenous bear attack. To protect against this contingency they loaded their arms with the fruits of their apple picking labors, convinced that these abundant sour, wormy apples would distract any wild, blood-thirsty creature, redirecting their mad cravings for the flesh of small children in a more vegetarian direction. Alas no moose were to be seen, but any squirrel, chipmunk or other woodland creature unwise enough to rear its head as we went by was greeted with a hail of apples "for its dinner."
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