Sometimes, on a sunny morning in August, when the berries are lush and warm, I feel more as though I’m milking the vines than just picking berries for breakfast. I remember all the berries we gathered in old soda cups and burger boxes that we tucked into our panniers and snuk into cafes, and I wonder why we never thought to take Tupperware on those camping trips. I thought I was a good berry picker back then but I was just a beginner. I’m good now though. My eyes have learned to tell the ripeness of a berry by its sheen. My fingers feel out the fattest berry in every cluster and I can pick them between my middle and index fingers, keeping my hand flat. The flat hand enables me to slide through layers of leaves, avoiding most of their thorns. The Himalayan blackberry — the scourge of the Pacific Northwest for three seasons and its cherished darling at harvest time — bears steely, curved thorns on stout stems. One glance and even a beginner knows to avoid them. It’s the sneaky thorns on the veins under the leaves that take me by surprise. One careless move and dozens of small, backward-curving hooks are embedded in my skin and sleeve. To release them, I move slowly forward — not backward as you might think — then down and, only then, backward to freedom.
Until three years ago, picking blackberries was synonymous with summer joys – warmth, camping, bicycling, hiking, tasty snacks, and good friends. I didn’t associate it with spiders until I moved to Oregon at the peak of the berry season in September. I’d been here before, in July, when the berries were still red and the spiders inconspicuous. Filled with anticipation, I trotted to the nearest vines with my bucket, reached for a plump berry, and my hand went right through a web I hadn’t seen. A large spider sped to safety. I tried another spot and hit another web. They were festooned all over the bushes, hidden in different angles and so thin they caught almost no light. I’d tangle in one, scrape the sticky stuff off, turn, and run into another. It was pretty annoying and, although I’ve always admired spiders, it was a little creepy too. Over and over I’d fight down an atavistic fear that the spiders would leap onto my flesh and bite me painfully, if not fatally. Then I’d move on to what looked to be spider-free territory but it never was. Ripe berries attract bees, wasps, fruit flies, and other insects, and the spiders were right there, getting fat on them. They were huge compared to July, and their webs were formidable. Destroying one was no longer a faux pas but a major demolition, for which I apologized over and over.
Then the weather changed. On a sunny morning with cool, moist air, I strolled outside and saw an unimaginably beautiful spider web. It was a classic orb with dewdrops lined up along every silken strand. Each one captured the light and scattered it. I fetched my camera and took a picture, certain I would never see another web so lovely. But my gaze shifted to a different angle and I saw another. And another. I was thrilled, and not just by the beauty. Now that I could see them, I could go back to picking berries.
On one such morning, my little granddaughter, Kady, freaked out about a spider in the house. She hates spiders almost as much as she loves diamond tiaras so I told her about the lovely web I’d seen. I wanted to make a few points for spiders, but she just eyed me suspiciously.
We went out for a walk. I’d forgotten the spider webs almost immediately and was mulling over the latest rumor of a neighborhood mountain lion. Suddenly Kady shrieked, “There’s one!” I looked for the cougar but, of course, saw nothing. “There!” she cried again, pointing into a blackberry bush. When I still didn’t respond, she said, “It’s what you told me about, the necklace fit for a princess.” I looked where she was looking and saw the sparkling web. The next second, my arachnophobic granddaughter was nose-to-nose with it in rapt admiration, heedless of its wary architect.
The dazzling webs stick around for a few glorious weeks. The berries continue to ripen, but more slowly. The air gets cooler day by day and the webs grow brighter with larger dewdrops. A few berries turn fuzzy with fungus and the berry pickers get more cautious. The berries still taste like hot summer sun though. At least I think they do. Maybe it’s the hint of fall color I taste, with a dash of cold wind and the tang of frost.
Valerie Cooley is living in Coos Bay, Oregon. When she’s not playing with her beautiful and brilliant young granddaughters, she paddles her kayak on the bay, watches birds, gardens, and contradances once a month
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