BLUEBERRY TRADITIONS

Summer is well underway in these northern lands. Hot and muggy days with nights often rumbling and booming with thunder and lightning confirm the knowledge that the very welcome warm season is here, with nearby woods and lanes bursting at the seams with the sweet heavy smell of ripening blueberries.

An assortment of berry farms thrive in this area and a close eye is kept on them this time of year with families having come to have ‘their’ favorite one which they frequent for their picking -year after year.

Any day now, a hand-made sign, generally a plank of flat timber, will appear at the entrance to berry farms’ alleys, bearing the white home-made letters: PYO

 Pick Your Own... the preferred mode for harvesting the little gems. Farmers like it because it saves them money, and people like it because they get to pick each berry just at the peak of perfection -sweet and succulent. Kids also like it because they love hands-on experiences, being able to eat as much as they can pick, thinking they’re getting away with something, as they come back from the fields with telltale sticky hands and purpl-y mouths.

My family looks forward to this adventurous early and cool summer morning. Our very young daughter has enjoyed the picking routine from early on. Gathering her beach pail she proceeds to reach the bright blueberries nestled in low bushes -picking only the very best ones, her tiny hands aloft the branches- to select just the perfect one … as I have shown her. Amazing how a three year old will learn and accept knowledge unconditionally. And I know she loves the fact that aside from the instant gratification of delicious mouthfuls, her mommy can incorporate the little blue things into some yummy jams, oatmeal and ice cream.

Fresh and biological blueberries are providing our young family with bursts of health plus the wonderful experiences that are so fast becoming extinct. Here in Vermont, blueberry picking is thought of as a tradition known for enhancing family togetherness.

Come autumn we also join in other important traditions of the area which include apple picking along with pure maple syrup collected solely in small quantities by a handful of independent maple farmers and artisans. We usually bring our own jars to receive the pure amber elixir soon after it’s prepared. It is an amazing thing to witness some of the larger maple trees in sugar-woods as some are over 200 years of age! But I digress.

Getting back to this warm summer day we are reaffirming our second annual family tradition of blueberry picking and look forward to the fall apple and maple crops.

At this time of year I'm always inspired by the stacked brimming pints of berries and other local produce to be found at roadside stands and hidden farms along country roads in this bountiful northern region.

For us, berry picking and produce gathering have come to define a traditional summer adventure, making for a great mid-summer family outing -along with the chores of washing the produce carefully and letting it air-dry flat on a layer of clean dish cloths on the kitchen counter.

I’m told that Native Americans were the earliest ‘pickers’ trading the wild berries with the newly arrived peoples of Europe; a job greatly changed these days as commercial farms employ a thoroughly migrant-worker labor force. @7/1970

THE CHRISTMAS BLIZZARD -part2

Christmas Eve dawned frigid and steely gray and our single unit heating system was working overtime. Under normal circumstances the day would have been perfect: we had warm shelter, the Christmas tree lights twinkled on and off throughout the day, we had food on the table and were lucky to be all together … we also had seven guests coming to supper that evening, foreign students who couldn’t afford to go home to Japan, Germany or Mexico for the holiday season. Those thoughts alone lifted my spirits as we went about preparing breakfast that morning.
Our car, out on the street, was completely immersed under fresh snow and my husband needed energy to dig it out with a shovel. We whipped up pancakes with maple syrup, Canadian bacon and scrambled eggs as little one fed herself with her hands, happy and oblivious to the snowy chaos outside, two new bottom teeth peering out of her gums.

Foreign students dined with us that night, sang Christmas carols, and eventually went home as another storm system made its way to our area that Christmas Eve night. We had shoveled out a space for our car in the street and placed a “Reserved Spot” sign which we attached to a broomstick and stuck into a large pot filled with packed snow. We were pleased that no one had taken advantage of the cleared spot once we vacated it to drop off our guests back at their dorms. That reserved spot had taken my husband most of the day to dig out!

Just as a very first Christmas should be, our baby opened presents, early on the 25th, stuffed Buche de Noel into her mouth, and clapped her hands as she tried her voice in our carol sing-along.  Her favorite present that day was a brown and shiny teddy bear.

By December 26 Burlington had received more than 30 inches of additional snow as a heavy, freezing ice blanket covered the streets.
By now it was evident we were not flying out that night. Our plan had been to fly from Burlington to New York’s Kennedy Airport and from there get on the nightly Pan American flight.  After placing a long distance phone call to my parents, and several calls to the local Burlington airport and the Pan Am offices in New York, I sadly concluded that we would not be on that night’s flight. The airline was indulgent and willing to alter our reservation. We tentatively decided to reserve for the following night, December 27. In the wee hours of that night prior to our re-scheduled flight, I made my way to the window several times looking up at the sky, praying for the sleeting to stop.

Miraculously, by 8 that morning the snow seemed to end completely. We certainly had had a mammoth of a storm, a blizzard in fact, roads were treacherous; TV and radio reports announced we had been hit with 13 more inches of fresh snow on top of the ice. A total of almost eight feet since the snowstorm had begun.  They were labeling this system, the ‘Christmas blizzard of the century”! Soon after breakfast, we went back out to clear the new snow from the car so as to have it ready to leave at a moment’s notice. By now I felt confident that we would leave that night.  The flight from Burlington left at around 5 PM leaving plenty of time to get ready and play with my baby; bags were ready to go.

Although the runways had been cleared, the areas surrounding them were covered with ice and some new snow.  Walking there was utterly hazardous, let alone run!

To make a long story short, we did fly out of Burlington that early eve in a packed Mohawk Airlines flight into Kennedy airport. Once there, we ran along with baby, car seat, large teddy-bear and carry-on bags to the international terminal and then on to the awaiting plane as the in-flight crew began their check list duties and to latch the airplane's doors. Finally seated and  exhausted, a voice came over the loud speaker announcing that due to some difficulties we would not take off for another 50 minutes!

The flight attendants were immediately delighted with my baby who was displaying some of her finest grins. After some time one of the attendants warmed-up our little one's bottle of milk and she settled, rather uncomfortably, in the attached little crib they had set-up for her between cabins. Despite her feet sticking out, she “swigged” her milk and quickly fell asleep … my angel!   “is it right to be taking her out of her customary existence? I wondered whether taking a baby overseas was safe? I was so young and worried to be hurting my child in any way… everyone says travel is the best education! This is our babe's first overseas trip.

THE CHRISTMAS BLIZZARD - part1

Late autumn came with its early afternoon dimness, encircling us all with wonderful snow showers. I was ecstatic at the first sight of snow!  A small child could not have been happier at the buoyancy of the nimble flakes as they softly fell on the back porch veranda.
With Thanksgiving just around the corner, snow and all its pleasures was just the needed ingredient to make the holiday a most cherished memory for years to come.

On and off  snow fell that fall, the heavens clearing a day before the holiday; lucky for us, since we were spending that Thanksgiving weekend with our cousins and their families in Mamaroneck, New York and we were due to drive that very day. We started early, so as not to be caught in the busy traffic and avoid driving into the darkness of early evening. After two hours, the pleasure of snow-covered fields turned to monotonous humdrum, especially when our daughter, who was sleeping on the back seat, in her car-bed, started to cough.  Unhooking my seat belt, I turned around on the passenger seat kneeling on it to tend to my child. Stunned, I saw her laying in a pool of fresh milky vomit while beaming a toothless grin. The stench was overpowering, but she seemed to be just fine.
Stopping the car – fortunately we were on a country road and traffic was slight – both of us proceeded to remove the baby, now six months old,  from her car-bed and to clean it with fresh snow and rags from the trunk. The clean bed and a new  change of clothes did nothing for the stink that settled in our Dodge Dart as we proceeded to our destination without further delay.

One important lesson: if you have a young one, never leave the house without a change of clothes (for you and your baby), a pack of paper towels and a bottle of water!

 After our return to Burlington, the frenzy of Christmas preparations and an early Hanuka made for a speedy December. On the 26th of the month we were due to fly to my parents’ to spend a few weeks basking in the Southern Hemisphere’s summer sunshine. Our suitcases had been packed for days! By December 23, five feet of snow had fallen in the Burlington area alone; our car was decidedly submerged in front of our apartment building.

With school holidays already in progress, children were ice skating and sledding on the street below us.  Later that morning, our family of three walked to the corner A&P store to purchase last minute items for the dinner we had planned for the few remaining foreign students from St Michael’s on Christmas Eve. I remember splurging on some candy canes to adorn our tree, two pints of eggnog and a frozen Christmas log -- a Bouche de Noel – for our holiday dessert.

The snow seemed to wane as a sun break appeared in the heavily opaque sky, our longingly awaited flight only three days away!

We spent most of that afternoon creating Christmas ornaments for our fresh albeit sparse Scotch fir. I had saved up empty paper towel cylinders which we wrapped in aluminum foil and then decorated with sequins and glitter to make them festive. These we hung from the tree along with lights and home-made tinsel. It truly looked amazing as we danced around it while our baby cheered us on as she crawled on the area rug.

Radio and TV reports announced delays and road accidents due to the subzero temperatures and snowy conditions in the Northeast; I believed however, that the snowfall would soon enough come to an end, so our travel plans could proceed.

Continued.....The Christmas Blizzard -part 2