Day 19

I slept in today, woke with sluggish joy, and made myself walk to the Court Side Cafe for lunch. As I did so a friend grabbed me and invited me to go berry picking. I didn't have any plans for the day- so what the hell. It sounded fun. After we grabbed several more people, we filled up another car and took off for an unknown farm.

We turned off the highway down a picture perfect road. It was paved with dirt and lined with green grass that spread out for acres on each side. A single line trees jutted high above our car and let a few windows of blue peak through. We pulled up to a tiny house with a black lab- that made me long for my own- running along the side of the car. It wasn't the farm we first had in mind but the woman kindly told us we could pick peaches, apples, and raspberries. Excited, we all made our way with Frankie, the black lab, to the peach orchard. We put our Product Knowledge....knowledge to the test and tried to pick out the most beautiful peaches and in our luck we found a soft, ripe peach we all took a sun-warmed bite and laughed watching the juice dribble down other's chins. Our sticky hands marked us as the thieves we were but the warm, sweetly tangy fruit was amazingly worth it. I was separated for only a few beats. In these precious moments I was walking down the hill in between the rows of peach trees, looking out over the rest of the farm, with the bluest clearest sky over head. I watched new found friends laugh and walk ahead. I had another stolen peach in my hand and as I ate the rest of the delicious fruit, I realized how blessed i was. I was truly happy and the warm sun that the peach had bathed in now filled me and made me smile and take thanks for where I was.

We picked apples- too starchy to be valued- and then raspberries. Being a raspberry fanatic, I was in love. I loved picking the varieties of red, purple, and white raspberries; tasting the difference, and watching to see which ones were sweet enough to gently tease off the bush and which ones still clung one until maturity. Much like life, if we struggle to do something we are not yet ready, but if we can fall into what ever is offered then we are old enough to see the world, instead of clinging to the safety of our branches. I feel philosophical today, can you tell?

After we gathered our gold we talked- like nerdy culinarians do- about what we could possibly cook with them. We then decided, what better than a cook out?

We spent 3 hours in Walmart trying to but such a feast together and Lord in Heaven did we. We had chicken wings, 10 pounds of hamburger, macaroni salad (my own contribution), potato chips, soda, key lime pie, raspberry cheese cake, and there had to be more. After we all fell deeply into a food coma we started offering our food to those smoking in the gazebos. We were a very popular group. Unfortunately we still through out a heart breaking amount and I went to bed- I had been up and about since 10 that morning- it had been a long day.