Watch Out For the Dingleberries!
Is there a good way to pick blackberries? Do they really taste that good? So good that you'd risk cuts, mosquitoes and thousands of little hooks grabbing at all your clothes. 'Hang on a minute' hooks perfectly designed demanding that you stop to carefully attend to the removal of their prickly spindly arms. And would my life be any different if I never ate another blackberry?
I say no to all the above. And if it were found that blackberries cured cancer, and I had cancer, I'd still have cancer. The harvesting of blackberries is not for the likes of the unbalanced hemophilia, the infected inner ear berry lover or the involuntary palsy affected mortals. Or anyone breathing!
I say all this because my neighbours have blessed my back fence with a blackberry bush that has become my nemesis. Between my fence and their garage is a three ft. (one meter) spot where I try to cage this beast. The neighbours don't bother with it as,...well, we can't see it who cares! They rent the place and it seems they have no need for space behind the garage. And if that beast just stayed there, I'd be okay with it, but it wants to climb over the fence all the time. So I treat it the same as the neighbour kid that tries to hop the fence to make a short cut through my yard. I go at the little bugger with the gas powered weed whacker.
Time after time each Fall I've gone at that thing with my weed whacked. -Not the kid the bush.- And every time it comes back with a vengeance. And then every spring that beast and I go at it again through the fence like a lion reaching through its cage trying to kill a porcupine. And I'm the lion with a machete.
It's a losing battle! I seek out expert help at the super duper hardware store to kill the beast but they just droop their heads like a child without the answer at school. I seek answers on YouTube and a guy with a hump on his back with three eyes tells me 'There's nuttin better than that there Roundup!' He then yells at an imaginary friend, turns his nose into the wind, howls and runs off.
I give it a maybe.
Then there's video after video of guys making their own kind of Roundup with vinegar, Epson salts, orange oil, dish soap, eye of newt and Draino. They just pours everything they have from under the kitchen sink and at the back of the garage into a bottle and makes a video of it.
But on YouTube I did find out that timing is key to its demise . The Fall when the sugars flow back into the root is the ideal time. "Pick the berries then kill it with some sort of birth defect causing poison" was proclaimed to be the most effective plan of attack. But I really don't want the berries. I just pick them so I don't get leagues of blackberry eating rats in the yard grazing on the fallen numbers.
I think the only people who could pick blackberries without injury would have been King Arthur and his knights of the round table. Iron clad, from head to toe, harvesters armed with swords.
Myself,..lacking the shining armour (pawned it after I got married along with my trusty steed) have tried thick clothing in blackberry brambles. But that just seems to attracts its long needle filled arms that hold you in space and time. So it was because of this I got the idea to do it naked. And here very slowly is key. Plan to start your berry picking just as soon as the wife leaves the house for the mall on a non windy day. Once you're out there you'll be surprised at how long it will take to do it in the buff. But what a difference berry picking with no clothes. Nothing to get hooked on while tickling needles lightly tingle and raise goose bumps across your skin. If you're careful and mind the dingleberries it's very pleasurable. But slow. And slow is how my wife let me know our neighbour, old lady Jensen was home from the hospital. How was I to know? And you'd think, as nosey as she is, she would of called the police right away rather than waiting for me to finish berry picking. It got cold out there with only my rubber boots on.
So because of this, and the other incident chasing little Peyton Griffin with the weed whacker I now have community service to do! I'm now tending a flock of goats grazing along a parkway. Apparently they like to graze on blackberry bushes. Goats eat blackberry bushes! Who knew!
I spent a whole day chasing goats in and out of blackberry brambles as payment for my crimes. Clothed! Some dumb farmer had lent his dumb goats to some dumb project of getting rid of blackberries. And I was the man in charge. In charge of dumb goats.
But I did see a smart solution to my situation at home. That night when the farmer came to get his dumb goats, I hid one in my car. The cute one. I told him it wandered off and that he should head back to his farm and I'll look for it. "See ya tomorrow!" I waved as I drove off home,...I mean to look.
I'm named him Barry. Barry Bush. A relative of George and Barbra on his fathers side. And knowing the Bush's probably the mother's side too.
Barry lived in my car for two days till I could sneak him in the house after my wife went to the mall. Upon her return the wife got wind of our new house guest. I told her I had adopted a dog which lessened my community service time. And she bought it! What a stroke of luck she thought Barry was a dog! One big ugly dog with a throat problem.
But what was even a bigger surprise for her was that her ugly German Shepard ate blackberries. And with great fervour. I removed a few boards from the fence for Barry to get at the bushes and he slowly chased them vines back to their roots. Ta-Da!
Now Barry goes back to the farm. But my wife loves her ugly dog now. And the city and everyone else in the world thinks it's a goat. So my wife, to prove them wrong thought Barry could be trained to be a seeing I goat,..I mean dog. But Barry would always lead them to a high place or in the middle of a blackberry bramble. Then the wife thought he could work at the airport searching for drugs. Barry ate them but in doing so became a better seeing eye dog.
Cadaver dog? He ate the rotten pig used as a cadaver test subject. Herding sheep? He just hung out with them and caught up on old times. Search and rescue? All he did was climb the mountain of crumbled building and stand and look around and do his funny bark from time to time. It was no use Barry was doomed.
I phoned up the farmer and told him I had found Barry. He said he knew. Our efforts had been well documented in the papers and TV news. And that the rental of Barry for the last two months came to a total of $720 dollars.
I swallowed hard then yelled at the wife to close the door but it was too late. "Ah man!" I said "Barry just ran out the door Mr. farmer." I lied. "If I find him again I'll give you a call." Then I hung up the phone.
All this happened last Fall. I eventually came clean with the wife about Barry. He was a goat. I stole him and I needed to borrow,...HAVE $820 dollars to give the farmer for his rental. And so it was with $100 dollars in my pocket this story came to an end. Except for the fact the blackberries are now back.
So if you'll excuse me I have to strip down and do some berry picking. Old lady Jensen's going to love this! I need Barry back.
Bob Niles
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