by Mike Patrick

Created on: October 01, 2009

Blackberry jelly. My mother makes a wonderful blackberry jelly. She shared a jar with me and my wife during our recent visit to the farm. I kept blathering over how good it was until Mom felt compelled to pull out her recipe and show it Martha, all the while telling her how easy it was to make.

Now I don't know what it takes to make blackberry jelly. I don't care. I know my limitations; I try to stay out of the kitchen. Oh, I can make a pot of coffee, as long as Martha reminds me how many scoops of coffee to use. Heck, it's not hard to pour a pot of water in the top of the drip coffee maker and push the start button, but cooking a meal or making something as complicated as blackberry jelly . . . why would I want to do that? I got married, so I wouldn't have to.

It would seem to makes sense that blackberry jelly would have one ingredient: blackberries. Yet the recipe looked like it had about thirty ingredients listed.

I kept pouring it on, saying how great it was. Perhaps continued bragging about Mom's jelly in front of Martha wasn't the smartest thing in the world to do. Martha can be rather impulsive, and she loves a challenge. She also mumbled something about my rubbing her nose in it, whatever that meant. Obviously she misunderstood something I said, but it was too late. The gauntlet had been tossed.

How hard can it be to pick a few blackberries, cook them down, strain out the seeds and make some jelly? she asks. She has never picked blackberries.

Next stop-the blackberry patch. Dad, bless his heart, used his John Deere tractor and a wagon to take us to the largest wild blackberry patch on the farm. I mention wild because the patch was one huge cluster covering about an acre. The only berries one can reach are those at the outside edge of the patch. Dad seemed unusually gleeful about us picking berries. As a matter of fact, just before we got there, Dad was laughing so hard he ran off into a ditch and almost turned us over.

When we arrived, there were only about two hours left before dark; therefore, so we only unloaded enough buckets to hold about a hundred quarts of blackberries. I don't know whose idea that was; I think it was Dad's. He was still laughing.

Martha thanked Dad kindly for bringing us and asked if he would mind picking us up just before dark.

Dad said, Oh, don't worry, Honey. I wouldn't miss this for the . . . I mean, I'll just wait here until you're done.

For those who have never picked blackberries, they have inward

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