It's blueberry season in western North Carolina. Cars are often parked on grassy edges of the Blue Ridge Parkway. People with buckets or widened plastic milk jugs are pressed into tall bushes or bending over short ones. Last year toward the far end of a long hike two women in long working dresses from what seemed like another century asked me, 'Vere ahr blueberries?'Barbara and I pick them every year, too, but they never taste as good at home as they do just off the bush--not that I don't bring a few quarts home every summer to put on cereal.
Toward the end of August most of the berries are gone. People too. But the blueberries are around even into October, sometimes like raisins, dry but sweet with concentrated flavor. I often don't bring water with me on shorter hikes, and stumbling across a berry patch in September is a little like finding a spring. In October it's more like finding a candy store.
To love where you live is a grace. Making the acquaintance of mountains and trails and berries and people in search of them is enriching. Curiosity and appreciation are simple and fruitful habits.
