One of my favorite life lessons from the garden, filled me again yesterday, as I picked raspberries. We have a small patch that asserted itself into the garden. I let it in last year and got a couple handfuls. This season, It has already provided us with 6 or 7 pints of wonderful red sweetness. It has established itself along a fence line which was pulled down this spring, so no fence any more. It is wider than I would like so, a little hard to pick for the reaching. I will thin it out this fall and let it grow longer down the line for next year. In the mean time, picking is a little bit of a challenge. If you have ever picked raspberries or really any sort of veggie/fruit that is on a vine, in a tree or just generally not a single pluck from the ground, it is always a challenge. Some things are very straight forward, like a carrot or beet or onion. You see it right there in the ground and pop!, you pull it and it is yours. Then there are raspberries, peas, beans or cucumbers. At first, it seems quite simple, you see the ripe/ready fruit and you pick it. But then you realize you might have to move a branch or vine to find the treasure. So there you are all convinced you have it all, until you bend down or turn your head, changing your perspective. Hmmmmm....and lo and behold, more fruit. Then you pick from the other side of the row and wow! how many did you miss? Quite a bit, usually. But you were quite confident that you had them all. Amazing how perspective changes what you think you have. Looking at things from the other side, another place, another point of view, usually changes everything. You often end up with more. So, some times, things are very straightforward, like a carrot ready to be picked and sometimes things need many perspectives in order to be fully understood. So move about the garden, searching for new perspectives as they will surely make you a richer person.
