It’s that time of year when there are hoards of secretive souls running the back roads.
They are sneaking out of town early in the morning. Aside from well tanned bodies and the smell of insect repellent and Benadryl lotion wafting off their bug bitten bodies, what are they up to. The stack of plastic pails in the car and their blue stained butts is a dead give away. The great blueberry hunt is underway. They are all expert liars and will string elaborate tales about the location of the best picking. Don’t waste your time asking.
Just shell on the 50 or 60 bucks a pail and consider yourself lucky if they supply a good measure of clean ripe ambrosia.
If you want to hunt some up yourself, just drive the back roads…slowly… and keep a sharp eye out for bear scat… that’s bear poop to the uneducated. When you find a good scattering of scat, take quick poke at the contents with a stick. If it’s well seeded with berries head for the bush. Don’t bother trying to pick the “previously enjoyed” berries out of the scat. I thought that would not need explaining, but you never know with uneducated city folk.
My brother-in-Law, an Albertan with Grizzly bear leanings sent me a pre-publication edit: “Just a little addition to your excellent detritus on bears. As you said, scat with seeds embedded suggests good picking. Scat with plastic trinkets (or dog tags and pet collars) it means the li’ll schnauzer didn’t get away!” observed Ralph Jorgensen of Calgary.
If this sounds too primitive for you folks too lazy or uninterested in living dangerously with our local bruins. The other ambrosia that’s hitting the markets are peaches. But again a good bit of knowledge will make the experience much more rewarding. Peaches come in several types. The first type is called the cue ball or porcelain peach. They look lovely. Large and perfectly formed they will be woody, pithy and with the flavour redolent of punky polar. The only way to avoid getting stuck with them and the attendant belly ache is to take a sharp knife to the fruit counter and sacrifice one or two of them. This
of course carries the risk of being charged with theft.
Or you can try the squeeze test. Gently a three finger squeeze and caress to see if the plump round flesh has any give should provide a fair assessment of the object. Again gentlemen, care and caution are the watchword. If your glasses happen to get steamed up by the arctic blast pumping out of the A/C and you misjudge what you’re squeezing.
There could be serious repercussions.
If you survive the little shopping trip and finally do select a few bathtub peaches you can head home to enjoy them. They are called bathtub peaches because the only way you can truly enjoy them is by sitting in a bathtub. Tuck into the ripe peaches and don’t worry about the juice running down your face and fore arms. Absolutely delicious and just turn on the shower when you’re finished.
I think it beats being chased by a bear and it could add a new and exciting chapter to your life experiences if you try the co-ed variation. Why just Peachy!
