Blueberry Moon
Thinking about what's to come
Welcome to another edition of Willoughby Hills!
This newsletter explores topics like history, culture, work, urbanism, transportation, travel, agriculture, self-sufficiency, and more.
Last night, my daughter and I were driving home as the nearly full moon was rising. In the early evening, the moon looked larger as it loomed just behind the mountains and hills of Western Massachusetts, like when a telephoto lens compresses depth and makes something far away appear nearby.
Our drive took us past one of the farm fields used by Red Fire Farm, which grows local organic produce on a patchwork of small plots scattered across two towns. We happened to be passing the blueberry patch.
The snow from this winter’s various storms still blanketed the ground in white, while the red branches of the blueberry bushes spread upwards and outwards from the snow. They were little campfires set in neat rows in an otherwise colorless void. In the distance, the oversized moon glowed on the horizon, watching over these piles of red twigs, nurturing their potential.
In a few months time, the blueberry bushes will no longer be just a collection of sticks. Soon, they will be covered in leaves, converting the sun’s energy into life for the plant. That life will create hundreds of little white flowers later in the spring. In turn, those white flowers will develop into small greenish balls.
As the balls grow and ripen, they will turn red, then purple, then a deep blue. It’s hard to imagine now on the cold, snowy days of winter, but come June and July, the sweat will form on my forehead as I stand in the hot sun and run my fingers through these leafy, fruity bushes. When I find an appropriately large and deep blue berry, I will pinch it off and place it in a small cardboard container, or perhaps pop a few in my mouth in the field.
This will be my third summer as a CSA member at Red Fire Farm. Before that, I had a CSA share at Clark Farm in Carlisle, Massachusetts. This is probably my seventh or eighth summer making memories with my family, picking blueberries right off of the bush and eating them fresh.
It’s a strange thought that my blueberry memories, the ones that are so synonymous with early summer, are actually being formed right now and throughout the year. Unlike annuals like a tomato plant or a pepper plant, blueberries do not have to be replanted. Like many fruits, they grow on the same branches year after year. Those branches, and the unseen roots below the soil, grow stronger and bigger over time too.
Some of the blueberry bushes at Red Fire Farm are as tall as my shoulders, others barely reach my knee. The older the plant, generally the bigger and more productive it is.
There are two lessons that I’m taking this morning as I consider the blueberry bushes on this cold winter day.
The first is the difference between potential and results. The blueberry stems that look like nothing more than dead wood are in fact holding a great potential for a summer harvest. It’s easy to overlook this, to see those stems as nothing but lifeless. But without the fall, winter, and spring, there are no summer blueberries. It takes a full cycle for the fruits to bear.
The other lesson I’m considering is the hard work that’s always happening behind the scenes to produce any finished product, whether that’s a blueberry, a piece of art, or anything in between.
We often hear a song on the radio and assume that it just came into being, not seeing all of the work it took to write, record, edit, and mix that piece of music. Or we see a building being constructed, not recognizing the months or years of planning done by architects, engineers, contractors, and many others before a shovel ever goes into the ground.
A few months ago when I drove by the blueberry field, there was a lone farm worker with a pair of hand pruners walking through the rows. I assume he was cutting away any dead wood and encouraging new growth to sprout. This was probably in December or January, a time when the tractors are parked in the barn and the fields look largely empty. Still that lone worker was out putting in the work to ensure a hearty harvest months later.
We are so used to everything being instantaneous these days. Google, Siri, or ChatGPT can answer nearly any query, sometimes with dubious accuracy or incomplete information, but still with speed. Dinner can be microwaved in seconds. An airplane can cross time zones and continents in mere hours.
It’s easy to get caught up in that illusion of speed and to be disappointed when our plants don’t flower immediately, literally and metaphorically.
But nature does not work in an instant. Nature is a process. There are times of plenty and times of meagerness. There are periods of exertion and periods of rest.
It won’t be long before the snow melts and the first signs of spring begin to sprout: the tender spinach leaves, the scallions and green garlic, the early broccoli. Soon it will be strawberry season again, then blueberry season, and then miraculously apples, squash, and then snow. The process is long and predictable, but also somehow faster. Or maybe I’m just getting older, as the days and months seem to race by at a pace I could not have imagined as a young child, laying in the grass and watching the clouds pass by overhead.
No season lasts forever, but each season is a vital part of creating and sustaining life.
Appreciate the season. Imagine what is being formed. And sometimes, stop and admire the moon.
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