No Berry Puns Here

I feel a little silly waxing poetic on berry picking after Stefaneener's already covered that ground, and in her perfect prose, no less. But berry picking day is one of the highlights of our family's summer. I think we've been at it for 12 years, although we may have had a year or two off in that time. We gave up sharing it with others about 5 years ago, in favor of our own company, rhythms and traditions.

They are ollalieberries, a cross of boysenberries and blackberries. And short story is that the weather was nice, we picked 16+ pounds, and then went to the beach, and it was nice.

The Dostoevsky version, though, is that I spent so much of the day appreciating so many things, seeing almost holy rays of light shining down on moments I was living, freezing them in time. It was the first time that we were all off doing our own thing at the berry field - JMan taking photos, TP and Spouse picking in other rows. And I was in blissful, zenlike silence while I picked five pounds of berries. I felt incredibly strong today, my runner thighs thought nothing of the squatting that brings the best pick. The sun was mixed with fog and a sweet breeze, and I got some color on my farmer-tanned shoulders while I picked and thought and enjoyed the experience.

The beach we love so much has changed over the past year - it's gone from an unincorporated no-rules (no potties, either) beach where Cal could run for an hour without seeing another dog to a state beach that does allow dogs (on-leash...we're still breaking that rule). There are a lot more people, but most of them left not long after we got there (hopefully it was the time of day, not us) and we got our old beach back by 4:30. We walked and ran and got wet and found hermit crabs and sea anemones and limpets. We saw brown pelicans and seals and cows, all at the same time. The smoke in the sky from the wildfires somehow made the color of the ocean more magical than I've ever seen it, sort of a sea glass green as the waves broke. JMan commented on the color, too, comparing it to the Little Colorado, and he was right.

And I was able to just sit still there, too, and notice how wonderful the Pacific is near where we live. Northern California beaches aren't like beach blanket movies so much as they are like wilderness documentaries. Incredible beauty mixed with peril. Special and scary and always cold and wonderful. If I leave California someday, it will be the ocean that I miss more than any other scenery.

It was a magical day.