Thursday, 7:30 AM. 56 degrees, wind S, calm, channel glassy. The sky is overcast and the barometer predicts rain. It is a very quiet morning, only a few birds singing.Judy’s wild blueberry pie is proof positive that wild blueberries are tastier than tame, and well worth the effort. We all had blueberry pie with ice cream around the campfire last evening, and I am fortunate to have a piece waiting for me for breakfast (sans ice cream).
I need to mow the parsonage lawn and get ready for tonight’s concert but if the rain holds off I will harvest mulberries. The white mulberry, Morus alba, has been cultivated for thousands of years in Europe and Asia, both for its fruit and for the leaves, upon which the silk worm feeds. The silk industry is no longer viable in most places outside the Orient. The blackberry-like fruits of the mulberry are still somewhat popular, but most people are no longer familiar with them. This is unfortunate, as every farmstead used to have its mulberry tree. For some reason, the mulberry as a fruit has never been commercially viable in this country.
Joan remembers climbing high into the huge mulberry tree on her aunt’s farm, she and her cousins collecting the fruit for preserves and deserts, and collecting skinned knees and blue stained fingers and faces in the process. It is indeed unfortunate that most children today no longer have the opportunity to have such innocent and rewarding adventures, but are relegated to the artificial and controlled adventures of playgrounds (or worse, video games), designed by adults.
There is also a relatively little known native red mulberry, Morus rubra, sometimes grown for its fruit, but it does not occur this far north. Selections of both species can be very handsome trees.
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