berry judgmental

A weird thing happened to me the other day. As we were coming home from somewhere, I noticed some people of a different ethnicity than myself picking berries or something from the bushes along the street where we live. I don't want to go into too much detail (for risk of embarrassing myself!), but my initial reaction was to have some pretty judgmental thoughts go through my head toward those people, picking their food instead of buying it. Seriously!

Then, several days later, I was out for an invigorating (read awful-I-need-to-get-in-shape) morning run, when I passed the bushes. I was fascinated to see literally hundreds, maybe thousands, maybe millions of blackberries. WOW. Gorgeous, huge, ripe for the plucking, blackberries.

So what did I do? I was at the end of my run, and I filled my palm with some blackberries. I came home and washed them and enjoyed them. They were marvelous.

A couple nights later, I took a huge salad bowl out there and picked dozens more.

A couple days later, I went on a walk with Wesley and made our last stop the blackberry bushes, where I filled another container with the yummiest, most fabulous, free blackberries.

Seriously, I could look at my haul and put a price tag on it... a 1/2 pint of blackberries is at least $2. I have come home with at least $10 worth of blackberries in the last few days. Wesley gobbles them up. They are huge and ripe and very tasty. (They also stain clothes quite badly. So watch out for that.)

But the lesson to me is much more. Man, that was rude of me to point a judgmental finger at those people. What they were was brilliant, even more than they were frugal. They were taking advantage of Mother Nature's bounty. It's rewarding to pick my own food! My cool friend Stacey has raspberries bushes at her very own house, and I can't say how amazing that is. Raspberries? Your very own? I am in awe. I always knew it was possible, but I guess it takes an experience like this to make me feel realize that yes, fruit and vegetables do grow in the ground! They don't just come from grocery stores!

And, of course, I really do need to watch my thoughts. Even if I didn't say anything out loud, it shames me to think about what I thought. Give people the benefit of the doubt. In fact, those people got me on a blackberry kick that will stay with me maybe forever! I have a new reason to love summers at my place of residence. I'm grateful to them for their good example to me.

Happy berry pickin'!