It was a big day today! After summer school, we were having a pick-up for the chickens that we butchered. Since I had to be outside and watch for people to come, I decided to work on our landscaping. I weeded for an hour, and then laid rocks in front of the woodchips, and it looks awesome. Then Luke made a so-called "simple" request - he was busy preparing for the CSA deliveries tomorrow, and he was wondering if I could pick the raspberries.
Our raspberry patch was decent last year, about two 50-foot rows, and we got a lot of berries off of them. But, if you recall last year, the rain was ridiculous, and we lost most of our patch to the rain and floods. Such a bummer! Well, Luke thought we only had a few bushes to pick - and we did. I only got 2.5 pints worth, but it was brutal. I think the only reason Luke asked me to pick them was because I'm the only person who can't just up and quit like his employees and volunteers. Seriously, the thistles were EVERYWHERE!
My first encounter with the first thistle in the patch may be funny to you, but it was quite uncomfortable for me. I leaned forward to pick a raspberry that was a little further away, and I was trying to be so careful to not get my hand prickled from the raspberry bush. Well, in my reach, I got a little unbalanced, and I started tipping forward. I really didn't want to fall onto the raspberry bush, because they have little thorns on them. So, I overcompensated, and boy did I pay for it! I tipped backwards, and my butt landed right on top of a thistle! OUCH! I felt like the hyenas in "The Lion King" when they jump into the thistle patch. I leaped up so high, and yelled out a few harsh words. Then, I looked ahead of me and saw that the whole patch was surrounded in thistles. Even when I would be extra careful to avoid them, one would rub on my leg, or I would reach for a raspberry in the middle of the plant, only to find there was a hidden thistle in there. It was ridiculous - I felt like I was at a hospital - getting pricked and prodded over and over again. I may need to ice my butt, or at least use a tweezers to pick the thorns out.
Luke will probably be picking those on his own from now on....
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