Fruits of the Earth

Summer solstice, the fullness of the year, and the very best gifts of the season are its wild foods. You see the first crop of chanterelles, both yellow and cinnabar, from the rain-soaked Divine woods, used to fill a morning omelet, and the first few blackberries from the meadows and woods' edges, used to make berry scones. There's also fresh basil in a pot. Christmas CANNOT compare, not for one minute.

Berry Lust

Picked a bowlful of wild blackberries today for the first time this summer from the thousands of blackberry briars in the meadow. One ripe shiny juicy blue-black one leads to another,  bigger, sweeter, riper -- berry lust fills me...the more I see, the more I want. Thorns rip my skin and clothes; mosquitoes halo me, poison ivy leaves molest me; but there the berries are for the taking! Irresistible! Divine! Enjoy thinking of the thousands who have done this before me through all time, happy to see sweet berries, picking the finest ripest ones to feed their families.

Love them in cornflakes and milk. Love baking berry scones (pictured) with blackberries just picked and warm from the sun. What berry-picking teaches: 1) Wait until it's ripe. It's no good until it's ripe. 2) You can't have it all. You can only have some. 3) Live in the now. 4) The free things in life are best.