Passing on proclivity for picking in the lakeside hills

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/10/2023 (1115 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

My grandson, almost three, is a collector. His collections over the summer months have involved countless (and welcome) explorations while we visit our cousins’ lakeside cottage.

I did not know he would be a collector. I only know that his habit of rising at 5:15 a.m. creates some measure of difficulty for adults longing for more sleep. His parents take their turns for the first couple of hours, but though they adore him, their enthusiasm wanes.

Their son is not a quiet and retiring little fella. His voice is big, his questions endless, his joie-de-vivre 11 out of 10, and his range of early morning protests extensive. (I shy away from using “tantrum” because he has a sense of purpose and/or desire that while in itself quite reasonable, as far as he can tell, simply doesn’t coincide with the good of the common space he shares.)

To preserve some peace, I am up, preparing for our foray into the woods. We have developed rituals for this walkabout. There has to be a graham cracker (a whole one, not a half); a bucket (sometimes a basket); snacks (though he may have already had two or three breakfasts); hats doused in spray for the mosquito bites (as he calls all manner of bugs); running shoes; and, if I am lucky, something other than his pyjamas.

My grandson has of course created his own imaginary names for the forest, conceived in relation to the berries he might pick. At the end of the cottage path, he names Blueberry Mountain to the left and Raspberry Mountain to the right. He gives direction towards which mountain (a hill, really) he prefers on any particular morning.

The dirt road is full of rocks he might try to dislodge so that he can throw them, puddles to splash in if there’s been rain overnight and further bits of this and that he examines, discovering an array of what-nots he figures must be important.

And they are, for this green land we discover together pulses with wonder, its resources inexhaustible in his eyes (though fragile in my own, for I can see there are fewer birds, bugs, wildflowers, frogs — the wildness resplendent in my own childhood has not been tended lovingly over time by my generation).

My grandson and I begin with strawberries, tiny and fragile, his little fingers seemingly perfectly suited to their dimension. By the end of the second week of July the blueberries are ready. He tracks them up Blueberry Mountain, carefully placing the berries in his bucket, rarely eating them along the way because he imagines the thrill of showing them off to his cottage mates.

If I add the blues I’ve picked to his collection, he says thank you. Every time. So many thank yous, so much gratitude for what the bushes give freely.

Raspberries follow in August. We find a run of bushes ringing round a septic tank with a view to the water. There are related objects of interest: a twig, a burr, a stone that curves into a ball, ants, cobwebs, prickly pine needles. Once we find a frog. I suggest catching and releasing a grasshopper, but we get only as far as the suggestion. The grasshopper is too quick, too smart.

When berry season is done, my grandson cannot figure out why. I mention something like the end of a growing period. I might mention this explanation every 10 seconds in response to his constant and curious “Why?” Growing season as a concept does not hold much water; he figures the berries are eternal as he must be — each moment expanding, bounding into his unbridled sense of glory.

We locate an unexpected sugar plum bush that reminds me of my own berry-picking seasons as a child, at the cottage my grandfather built more than 100 years ago at the best turn of the bending St. Mary’s River.

I think of my own Grandpa Ben, my berry-picking teacher. This grandfather of backyard apple trees, legendary pickle barrels, a summer kitchen we invaded looking for treats, well out of sight from my grandmother, who supervised his sugar levels and affection for carbohydrates.

My grandfather taught me and my hand to nurture a delicate touch, wonder and gratitude. There seemed to be music round us as we picked. I felt it in the treasuring of each other’s company, in the looking for treasure in patches spreading from the cottage back door.

I do not recall if I made collections. I do know I collected the strength of his hand as we walked together, the shape of his belly curving outward beside me, the slope of his suspenders, the softness of his plaid shirt and the wool trousers worn in all seasons, the hum of his purpose, the butterscotch candies waiting for me in his pocket, the quarter that magically found its way into my palm. Our rituals, his wisdom, my inheritance.

Now, this little boy toddles beside me. Together we are cartographers of a forest, dedicated to discovery, collectors of the path-finding and memory-making still possible in a natural world, which, while bruised by greed and indifference, still welcomes our presence.