Mulberries are tricky. Thousands of plump, ripe fruits dangle from low and high hanging tree branches and can be seen from yards away. However, once I get close to the tree, the shy berries hid behind green leaves and on opposite sides of thin, wispy branches. I pulled a branch close to me and find one ripe berry and plopped it into my bowl. Careful inspection of the branch revealed one more and another. Three berries in the bowl. I moved on to the next branch, for my next prey. A few more dropped into my bucket. As I started to move to the next branch within reach, I looked back at the first, and found three more plump specimens, jeering at me. I moved back to the first branch and plucked their petulant corpses from their home. This same pattern continues for nearly an hour. I pick a branch clean, and look back at a previous branch, only to find more berries dangling just out of reach. Lucky for me, the branches were supple and easily pulled down to within my reach.
My bowl was almost half-way full, and I considered the possibility that, even though there was a storm last night that hurled thousands of berries to their grassy deaths, I still might have gotten enough of the remainder for a pie or at least a little tart. But, I wasn't quite there yet. I got greedy. A twenty foot ladder stood at the ready, just waiting for me to reach new heights. I climbed to the top, hoping to get the biggest juiciest specimens that were high in the sky. The bounty was plentiful up there. I reached and cleared nearly twenty berries off of the first branch. These were bigger than the lower branch berries, and I got more optimistic about that pie.
I reached for the third branch, and there was a big, chubby fruit just a little bit out of my reach. I pulled on the branch to bring it closer to me. Not quite close enough, I put my berry bucket on the top of the ladder and climb up one more step. Stretching, reaching, I was almost there. I leaned forward just a little bit more and heard a noise. I had bumped the bucket and it tumbled to the ground, up side down. Instead of a bowl full of enough mulberries to make a tart, I had two berries left. The contents of my bucket laid on the ground in a pile of mud, ants, and rotten berries that had previous fallen from the tree.
Heartbroken, I sifted through the pile, combing through the grass, trying to salvage what I could from the disaster. I was able to line the bottom of my container - about one tenth of the amount I had before the fall. I brought my nearly empty receptacle into the garage where my husband was wiring some lights in. Surely, it was somehow his fault. The ladder must have been improperly placed, or the ladder inadequately equipped (my him, of course) with a proper tray for berry picking tools. Or, perhaps, it happened just because he was in close proximity, willing the bowl to jump from its tenuous perch atop the ladder.
Patiently, he brought out a tarp from the garage. He opened it and lay it under the tree, covering as much ground as he could. He then went up that defective ladder and shook the tree, dropping three or four berries onto the tarp. Confounded, he moved the ladder and tried another branch. This time, about ten berries dropped to the covered ground. After about four or five more ladder positions and branch abuse, there were a small pile of berries (and various bugs and leaves) decorating the tarp. He gathered the ends, piling the little nuggets into one central area, where I scrambled on hands and knees to pluck them off of the tarp into my bowl. End result - I know had a quarter of the berries I had before "the incident".
There will be no pie. We had gathered enough for a small vat of berry infused simple syrup, that I would use to enhance the vodka I would drown my pie sorrows in and plot my revenge against the mulberry tree.
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