Sometimes I like to write about things other than sheep on here. If you Farm at all you can understand most of my ramblings and relate to them in some way, and I hope you’ll relate to this one.
Imagine someone told you there were unlimited amounts of a delectable berry that you could pick and enjoy during the hot summer months. They are everywhere if you look in the right places in and around most parts of Tennessee, free for the picking (mostly!). These berries are sweet yet tart, small and large, and will stain most things they touch, including your skin. And you have to work for them, especially the big ones, usually just out of reach deep in the briars. I’m not talking about blueberries, but I am talking about blackberries!
Since I was a young girl I can remember picking blackberries with my mom, twin sister and big brother. One such time I remember begging my brother to take me with him (I was probably 8 or so??), and after a fair amount of picking we saw rain coming towards us across the field, he told me to run and we ended up in the woods beside our pasture soaked! But we got blackberries, and my momma knew just what to do with them. She makes the best blackberry cobbler you can imagine 😍 Mom used to tell stories of her mother making her and her sister pick blackberries with her in Alabama growing up. She would send them into areas my mom and her sister were certain to be full of snakes and ticks (no one ever had any close calls that I was told of!) But they picked the best blackberries and would use them in the coming months to make all kinds of yumminess.
Now my little girl LOVES to pick blackberries, and she eats them almost as fast as I can pick them.
While she doesn’t exactly join me in the deepest blackberry thickets yet she does watch from the truck and asks me to bring her and Madisyn more berries (aunt Josey kept them well supplied on our last pick). Blackberries are hard to pick, and they enjoy scratching and taking bits of your skin when you pull a particularly large handful out from their branches. I can’t explain why but I look forward to this time of year with joy and ambition. To find the best blackberries so my mom can make blackberry cobbler for the Fourth of July picnic 💗 Some years we don’t pick enough or they just aren’t very plentiful, and some years we freeze 10-15 quarts of them. You just never know! It’s a family past time that I will continue for many years to come. I’ll wear my jeans and boots, bug spray, and my dad’s 22 around my waist if I’m alone (snakes, stray dogs, you never know!) I hope my sweet girl remembers picking blackberries with her momma one day just like I remember picking them with my mom 😍
I don’t know about you but I plan to make the blackberry cake on the front of the latest TN Home and Farm magazine with my latest batch. I’ll let you know how it goes! Until then remember to reach high for things (just like those big blackberries) and with enough effort you will have them in your grasp.
Special thanks to K’s Unc Matt Matt for bush hogging around the beloved blackberries and Doug for driving the truck following us around the field! And Madisyn for helping K eat the blackberries we picked 😍
Can you tell we were hot?? Blackberries are hard work!
-Thank you for reading!!
Jessy Shanks
Shanks Genetics 