Five Senses of Raspberries

I walk through the gap in the tall lilac hedge to see row upon row of ripening raspberries stretching before me.  The sun has been up for an hour and a half and the morning light is still golden on their leaves and berries. I walk to my place at the beginning of a row, my milk jug belted around my waist, and set down my tray.  I will pick raspberries and place them in my milk jug. Once that is about half full, I pour them into my tray, which is lined with 8 pint-sized berry baskets.  One gallon total.  I earn about $16 per gallon picked.  Only pick the ripe ones!  Dark purple-red, fresh fuchsia berries-- plonk! plonk! into the milk jug.

The sounds of other pickers visiting, and the occasional welcome breeze rustling leaves and branches through the canes.  Early on, the insects swarm around the rows: mosquitos, gnats, flies, bees, grasshoppers. They create a busy hum as our fingers work quickly to pluck those dark red fruits.  As the day heats up, the breezes feel better and the insects retreat.

Reaching between stalks to find berries hidden beneath leaves, I get scratches along the backs of my  hands. Small thorns lodge in my fingertips.  I reach for plump, ripe berries-- they pull away easily.  I must have a soft touch-- don't squeeze them!  Sweat on my back and burning in my legs are my currency of toil and the reward is baskets quickly filling.

The berries have a buttery sweet candy smell, made sweeter in contrast to the cool dirt surrounding each row, and the sharp smelling dill growing rampant at row's end.

I steal a berry here and there-- only the broken or smashed ones, though! They are so sweet as to taste artificial.  Am I so used to raspberry flavor that the real thing doesn't seem real, it is so good? But these are the real thing, and they are superb.

Today, at my late-summer gig, I worked from 7:00am to 2:15pm, with a half-hour break.  I picked only one side of one row of berries, and filled 46 pints-- about 6 gallons. I made $90.  The cash is nice, but almost more than anything I enjoy seeing my labor quantified in pints and gallons-- visual proof of the work I have done.  I don't foresee a future as a migrant worker, and I will be glad once the season is over.  I will feel good about what I have done once the weeks of ripe raspberries are complete.