It seemed a good idea at first

You know those ideas that seem like really good ones at first blush, when excitement is high and enthusiasm keen!
But halfway across swimming Lake Ontario, you start to doubt your common sense and think you may have made the wrong decision—considering you only know how to dog paddle and a rescue boat should have been part of the plan, so the only option is to keep swimming?
Making jelly is a bit like that.
The blackberries behind my house this year are crazy plentiful, and every time “Gracie” and I stroll past them on our frequent daily walks, I’m obligated to pick them. I can’t help myself.
I wouldn’t walk by a $10 bill if I saw it tossed on the path and the blackberry seems even more valuable. That’s where Mother Nature gets you.
First she makes them tasty and plump and lovely, but then makes picking them a real challenge—the brambles and thorns tearing at your skin. My hands and forearms look like they have been to war and I’m not sure there were any survivors.
The bugs also like to hang out around the blackberries because they know some idiot is going to come along thinking, “Oh, look at the lovely berries. I must have some.” It’s a guarantee.
So I don my hornet-killing hazmat gear and I go to work. It’s only sweltering heat every day so wearing a winter snowboarding jacket and rain pants and boots, and my hood up, doesn’t make me too uncomfortable at all.
I pick berries while “Gracie” eats them. There should be rules about such things but blackberries are good for dogs—filled with antioxidants to fight free radicals and also the bonus of fibre and vitamins (I read that somewhere).
So “Gracie” eats and I pick, and she doesn’t look the least bit bothered by this imbalance. No conscience whatsoever.
And it seems I can’t stop picking. Just one more handful, but then there’s another and another. One is never done picking; there are just too many berries. It is a matter of backing away and making a run for it before you start picking again.
Then the jelly-making begins. Easy peasy. Right? Warm the berries slightly to get the most juice, mash them, put them through my juicer to remove the seeds—a juicer that gives cleaning a whole new meaning; a life of its own.
Retrieve six cups of juice from several hours of picking, with scars and scabs to show for it. Stir in pectin and then add my weight in sugar and stir until full boil is achieved and the molten lava thickens to desired consistency.
Yield: three-and-a-half jars. Cost, including my time and energy and skin repair: $386/jar. Buy it at the farmers’ market from an expert: $9/jar.
But I feel so noble, pioneer-like, that my grandmother would be proud. I feel like I’m ready for the apocalypse; that I know how to live off the land and could survive anywhere as long as I had a stove and jars and sugar.
But . . . three-and-a-half jars? Really? That’s it?
wendistewart@live.ca