hateful berries
Friday, August 14 
August is prime huckleberry harvest time in Montana. For those who’ve never tried huckleberries before, imagine something smaller than a wild blueberry, with an intoxicating fragrance and a taste that is Kapow!
For the past 17 years I’ve lived in Bozeman, I’ve never missed a picking season — almost always putting up a year’s worth of huckleberry jam and enough berries in the freezer for pancakes and muffins. And because I’d like our relationship to be based on honesty, you should know that I’m a wee bit competitive about my picking and that I sometimes comfort myself by thinking about how I probably have more berries in my freezer than you.
Part of my continued berry-picking obsession is due to the TV series “Frontier House” that ran a few years ago on PBS. If you’ve never seen it, imagine competitive reality TV meets the olden’ days. Two modern day families are placed in the Montana wilderness to fend for themselves with only tools, housing, provisions, clothes, etc. from the Frontier era. Call me a freak, but I watched that show and got so excited. I could envision myself trying to out-survive some other family: I’m wearing a sassy polka-dot bonnet with my potty mouth all like, Bring It. I will till the soil, out-hoe and out-can your ass like nobody’s business. Bitch.
Anyway, back to the berries.
My third year in Bozeman one of my brothers, who now lives in New York City, came to visit. I was pregnant with Oldest Son and convinced City Boy to hike 45 minutes up a trail to pick huckleberries with me, with the promise that if we picked enough, I would make him the best pie he’d ever tasted.
It was 90 degrees that day and unusually humid, with deer flies landing in our sweat and biting us. I’m not sure how much City Boy wanted to be there, but he’s rather easygoing, so he tagged along. We picked and picked, and just so you understand the labor involved, the quart of berries in the photo from earlier this week took me an hour and a half to pick. So, many hours of picking in the heat later, I looked at City Boy’s bucket of berries, added them to mine and pronounced us done.
Because I was impressively large-bellied for only five months pregnant, my balance while hiking was a little tricky, and I managed to save exactly one-half a cup of the half-gallon of berries that I accidentally dumped while stumbling in the very long grasses around us. The berries were so scattered and the foliage so thick that the berries were GONE. I looked at my brother, making sure he understood the gravity and truth of what I’d done.
He stood there, quietly watching me as I started laughing. Laughter built on laughter, and City Boy continued looking at me like I was out of my friggin’ mind, which made me laugh even harder. He laughed a little then too, but I’m sure he was comforting himself with the knowledge that we are blood-related by only one parent.
And then, because the baby’s head was resting on my bladder, I peed. Not just a discrete little-old-lady piddle that one might keep to themselves, but a serious full-pants soaker — like one where you would strip your child bare-naked in public because it was less offensive than having them walk around with sopping, smelly pee-pee pants.
City Boy came back to Montana two years ago for my wedding, but we didn’t pick berries. And I still owe him a pie.
Huckleberry Hound: Angus figured out that berries taste good and finds and eats them alongside me. Kind of cute, in an annoying sort of way.
Reader Comments (1)
LOL. Pee-pee pants? At least you were in the woods with only City Boy to witness.
I can totally see you whupping ass on Frontier House, sassy bonnet and all.