August in the blueberry patch

Mary Buchinger:
I love picking blueberries—I grew up on a farm where harvesting fruits and vegetables was commonplace and vital. Now, having lived most of my years in the city, I find I’m flooded with feeling when I enter this particular blueberry patch in Maine that’s become one of my summer haunts. It was established by a man named Ed who bought forty acres to plant six bushes for his mother who loved blueberries As he tended them, he became captivated and eventually planted many long rows of different varieties, learning more and more about the crop. He called the place Ed’s Easy Pickin’ Farm and each day he’d drive there in his small white pickup with his beagle at his side. One day Ed tripped over his dog, fell hard and, soon after, died. A neighbor has taken over care of the blueberries. The patch sits between a stand of pines (sadly, thinned now to a veneer) and a mown meadow that is home to foxes and deer, visited by bear, and traversed by families of turkeys. Timeless and seasonal, this place insists I am too.