Hard Work Pays Off

This is a photo of my raspberry patch.  When we first moved into the house, we noticed a few canes of raspberries, but they'd never really amounted to much.  Over the years, kids have played in the back 40 and broken them to use as whips.  Deer have trampled them.  Weeds tried to choke them out.  I all but gave up until two years ago, when I noticed that the raspberries were running for open ground.  

June had cleared off a spot and the raspberries were migrating to the open ground where they found room to grow and water.  Two years ago, I cleaned them out.  Last year, I did the same thing and put a bunch of red bark mulch around them.  This year, we have raspberries coming out our ears.

The raspberry patch is thriving because I took the time to weed it and keep it going a couple of years ago.  Last year, we had a couple of bowls full of raspberries.  This year, we had enough to make two batches of jam, and that's just so far.  As you can see in the photo, there are more to pick this evening.

There are also raspberry plant babies all over the place.  They make next year's berries.  I always thought you couldn't kill raspberries and apparently there's something to that thought.  I'm so thankful for them.

As I mentioned we made jam.  June kept getting mad at me because I kept playing with it to see if it set.  I was worried because the recipe for 7 pints yielded nine pints.  It set.  Boy did it set.  We've been eating it all day and I was threatened that I was not giving any away.  I explained to her that we had three jars to give; one to my good friend, one to my girlfriend, and one to my mom.  After that, it's all ours.  Boy, it's the best jam I've ever eaten.  I'm not kidding.  Grandma made great jam and this is every bit as good as hers.  I get this thing from my grandma.  She did things the old, old fashioned way.  When she made jam, she sealed the jars with about an inch of wax.  There wasn't any of this canning stuff.  She melted wax and poured it on top of the jam.

Jam is bomb shelter food.  

My church family is in for a bit of a treat.  Homemade apricot jam.  We have too much left over from last year's jam fest.  Our apricots are a month away from ripe and there's no way I can eat 12 jars of jam in a month.  They're about to learn that empty jars get full jars.  If you give me back the empty when you're done, I'll return it to you full of something else.

Usually.

Well, that's it on this hot July Tuesday.  The pool is clean and I'm gonna go for a swim.  Can't go fishing because I didn't go to the green waste because the soccer game was on.  Great game.  Heartbreaking finish.

I'm pretty sure there's a lesson in the story of the raspberry patch I should point out.  It's one about planting and reaping.  Sometimes we plant seeds and they grow.  Sometimes they die.  Sometimes someone else plants and we reap.  That's the case with the raspberries.  I didn't plant them.  I just nurtured them and in good time (not right away) I was able to reap the benefits of nurturing them along.  It took two years.  The first year, there were 19 plants.  They gave a handful of berries.  The second year there were over fifty and they gave two bowls full.  This year, they're thick, healthy and gave us what will be picking #3 with plenty still on the canes.  It took time but we're reaping the benefits of patience and care.  It's an object lesson about reaping and sowing and patience.  There's always something to learn in this life.