Up North (Sample Chapter: Where the Green Grass Grows)   by LeAnn R. Ralph

©LeAnn R. Ralph 2006

For several weeks, Dad had been planning a trip up north to pick blueberries. "The first nice Sunday when it's not too hot, we'll go," he'd said. And today was the day, now that Mom, Loretta and I were home from church and had changed our clothes.

The sky was a deep, cloudless blue and the air was so clear that every white clover blossom in the lawn--every purple and white petunia around the light pole in the front yard--every leaf on the silver maples--seemed to glitter in the sunlight. I stood beside the car and waited for my mother to make her way down the porch steps, her crutches clicking each time she moved one forward.

As soon as Mom had settled herself in the car and Dad had come back from checking the stock tank to make sure the cows had enough water to last until we came home later this afternoon, Loretta and I climbed in the back seat. And then we were ready to go.

"Have we got everything?" Dad asked.

"I think so," Loretta said.

"The berry pails are in the trunk, and so is our picnic lunch," Mom said. "And we've got lemonade to drink," I chimed in.

Dad started the car. He backed around by the garage, and we headed down the driveway.

For two hours, we drove north. The landscape changed from farm fields to pine woods, and just about the time I thought I was going to starve to death, we arrived at a meadow with pine trees all around it.

"Should we eat now or wait?" Dad asked.

"Let's eat now!" I said. "I'm starving to death." "I hardly think you're starving to death," Mom said. "But now would be a good time for our picnic."

In the trunk of the car sat a cardboard box which held bologna and cheese sandwiches, cucumbers and carrots from our garden, bottles of soda pop that we had bought at the little country store a mile and a half from our farm, some of Loretta's homemade peanut butter cookies and the lemonade she had made this morning. Last night, Dad had taken two plastic pails, filled them to half with water, and then he had put them in the big freezer in the machine shed. The pails of ice were in the box to help keep our food cold.

Mom opened her door and turned sideways in the car until her feet were resting on the ground. Dad opened his door, Loretta and I each opened our doors, and with a cool breeze blowing through the car, we ate our picnic lunch.

When we were finished, it was time to pick blueberries.

Dad had known of this spot for years, but even though he hadn't been here to pick blueberries in a long time, he was pretty sure there would be plenty.

I had never been picking blueberries before. When we went to the restaurant in town while we were waiting for our pickup load of corn and oats to be made into cow feed at the feed mill, I always asked for blueberry pie.

We headed toward the meadow, Dad in front, Loretta following Dad and me following Loretta.

"Look at 'em all," Dad said, as he waded into a thicket of knee-high bushes. "They're just loaded. We'll get as many as we want, and then some."

"Oh, good, I can make a blueberry pie!" Loretta said, as she followed Dad into the thicket. My sister was wearing a pair of pink and white slacks, a short-sleeved white blouse and a blue bandana tied over her dark, curly hair.

Everywhere I looked, the bushes were covered with blueberries as big around as the end of my finger. Loretta and Dad each carried five-quart plastic ice cream pails, but Dad had given me a container he had made from a one-pound coffee can. The little berry pail had a wire handle, and it was the same kind of pail we used for picking blackberries. When I picked blackberries, I tied the pail to my belt loops so I could use both hands.

A cool breeze out of the north fanned my face and arms as I sat down on the ground by the first clump of bushes. I could never sit down while I picked blackberries because the brambles were too prickly. But here I could reach right around me until I ran out of berries.

I had already covered the bottom of the pail when Dad spoke up.

"Where's the kiddo?" he said.

"Here I am!" I said, popping up from my spot in the blueberry bushes.

Dad laughed. "Sittin' down on the job, are ya? Getting any blueberries? Or are you eating them all?"

"No," I said, tipping my can toward him. "I'm not eating any. See?"

I had, in fact, eaten some when I first started. The blueberries smelled so good, and were such a deep, delicious blue, I could not resist. Fresh blueberries, I discovered, tasted as good as fresh blackberries.

Before I sat down again, I paused to look around. The ring of dark green pine trees stood out against a sky that was now decorated with puffy white clouds. The wind sighing through the pine boughs and birds twittering from the treetops were the only sounds I could hear. No cars. No machinery. No barking dogs. Nothing at all to spoil the afternoon.

Well, nothing except for one little black insect crawling on my leg below the hem of my shorts.

About the size of an ant, the bug did not look like an ant. It was more round than that, and it had different kinds of legs. I tried to brush the insect off, but it would not brush off, so I picked it off with my fingernails. I tried to let go of the bug, but I could not because the pesky thing kept crawling along my fingers. I finally got rid of it by wiping my hand on the ground.

I was going to start picking blueberries again, but even though I knew the insect was gone, I could not get over the idea that it was not gone. I kept remembering the way it had felt when it crawled on my bare leg.

Every couple of minutes I stopped picking blueberries to check for another insect like the first one. But after a while when I did not find any more, I forgot about it and concentrated on filling my pail.

Bit by bit, the blueberries piled up in the little one-pound coffee can, covering the first ring and then the second. Filling the whole can seemed like a big job, but filling the can up to one ring and then the next did not seem like much work at all.

A couple of times during the afternoon, I went to the car to drink some lemonade and to talk to Mom, who said she was having fun watching the clouds make different shapes. "It's been a long time since I've sat outside and watched clouds," she said.

The sun was still high in the sky when Dad announced that we should start for home so we would arrive in time to feed the cows and do the evening milking.

On the way home, once again I sat in the back seat with my big sister, and as we drove through evergreen forests and marshes with tall, green grass, it seemed to me that the whole day had been perfect. The sun had been warm but not too hot, and a breeze had cooled my face when I turned into the wind. But best of all, we had picked four five-quart pails of blueberries and half of another pail. Plenty of blueberries for my cereal and for dishes of blueberries with cream and sugar--and for Loretta to make blueberry pie--and for Mom to freeze blueberries so we could have pie during the winter.

It wasn't until a few days later that I began to wonder if the trip up north really had been quite so perfect . . .

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About the Author

LeAnn R. Ralph is the author of books about life on a small family dairy farm 40 years ago.

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