Tage and I went on a raspberry hunt this afternoon because I had been assured that there were raspberries two houses over, at Olof’s sister’s place. Since they’re on a six-week trip to Iceland and not expected back for a month or so, I figured they wouldn’t mind if we raided their bushes. Imagine my disappointment, then, when I could find only a couple of bushes and nary a ripe berry on any of them.

What I did find, however, was a veritable plenitude of ripe rhubarb and a nice little crop of black currants that are right on the verge of picking readiness. When I came back to our house and told Lydia that there weren’t any raspberries, she told me I was mistaken and led me to where she and her little friend had picked handfuls just yesterday. Too bad this particular little berry patch is across the street from my sister-in-law’s house and on the neighbor’s property. It didn’t look especially well-tended, though, and it is on the backside of their garage, so I took a chance and sneaked a couple of berries anyway.

I’m hoping we’ll have our own bushes next year and won’t have to scavenge around the neighborhood for our berry fix. We do have a number of small plants behind our own garage, but they’ve been so entangled with stinging nettles that we haven’t been able to make much use of them. I was bemoaning this fact to my mother-in-law last week on Tage’s birthday, and it wasn’t but a couple of days later that she and my father-in-law came and pulled away all the nettles. She says that the raspberry bushes look good and that we should have a nice crop next summer. I can’t wait.