Karo Cans and Grampa's Free Berry Patches

It’s hard to imagine our old homestead without thinking of the all the things that grew there. Besides the garden and the orchard, who could forget the first shade tree Dad planted? The elm. He called it a Piss Elm for some reason. Before it was big enough, we all tried out tree-climbing, and broke many of it tender branches, but it survived despite our cruelty, somehow. On Dog Days, Grampa Williams did quiet food prep, like shelling peas or snapping beans beneath its shade and the girls staged their activities, on an army blanket there, all summer long. My favorite was either the little lilac bush growing outside the bedroom window with its heavily scented lavender flowers, that felt so cool to the touch, or the pussy willow bush that grew behind the clothesline post. Its silvery soft buds utterly fascinated me. On the other side of that clothesline post, I visualize some stout, bright pink rhubarb sprouting in the spring. Who remembers the row of poplar trees across the front yard, and the mulberry tree across the road, on Britz’s side that made a sticky mess when it dropped its sweet fruit in the gravel? I liked the taste of mulberries, but always got a stomachache because I never knew when to stop eating them. Zinnias. Lots of zinnias in every color—so stiff and dry-feeling. Bachelor buttons, hollyhocks, bleeding hearts, sweet peas, cosmos, and the four o’clocks—“the flowers that can tell time” as Mom would say. Choke cherries, sweet potatoes, “mush” melons, and a few tiny pathetic peanuts were some of the odder crops we grew. Dad made Bob and me mow down the tall weeds in the orchard with a large two-handed scythe we could barely lift and around each tree with a hand sickle. We hated this job because it took so long. Later he mowed it himself with a cutting blade he pulled behind his homemade tractor. We had a bramble of a black raspberry patch out back a little north of the outhouse. After we had picked all the berries there, we’d put on long-sleeve shirts and set out to pick wild raspberries and blackberries with Grampa. He knew where all the good “free” patches were in the woods. We each hung an empty Karo Syrup can, strung with a cord around our neck so both hands would be free for picking. One year, we picked so many blackberries that Grampa sold them house to house to the rich people who lived in Villa Park. And, what was the fauna, you ask? Kids, kids, and more kids!