One of the things I love most about summer is fruit. Fresh fruit.
In the summer, I can eat fruit without that nagging guilty feeling, without mentally calculating the long miles a banana or apple has come to find its way into the fluorescent-lit pile at the Orange Street Food Farm.
In the summer, I can walk out my back door, take a few steps through the yard, kneel in the garden, and gently lift the soft, serrated strawberry leaves to find the heart-shaped fruit beneath.
In the summer, I duck under the long, spiny canes of raspberries and blackberries, hunker down against the fence, and fill bowl after bowl with magenta and purply-black thimbles of fruit. The sweat drips down my face and the spines leave pale scratches (and, occasionally thin spiderwebs of blood) on my skin, but the raspberries taste all the sweeter for my small toil.
In the summer, I race the fat eastern fox squirrels for the handful of cherries our little cherry tree produces--dreaming of the day when it will bear hundreds--pulling them off the stem before they're fully ripe, spitting the pits into the grass. (I think the squirrels still ate more than I did.) (There's always next year.)
In the summer, because we want more cherries than our young tree can produce, Greg and I take an afternoon to drive north a couple of hours to the eastern side of Flathead Lake, where dozens of cherry farms line the shores, the fat globes of fruit calling out to be picked. We strap on well-used cherry picking buckets and wander among the trees, plucking pounds upon pounds of cherries, hearing the satisfying thunk-thunk-thunk as we pile them on top of one another. Later that evening, or perhaps the next, we'll spread out old sheets on the living room floor, choose a movie or two on Netflix, and, armed with bowls, quart-size freezer bags, and cherry pitters, pit our 40 or 60 pounds of cherries, staining our hands a deep purple that will linger on our fingertips for days.
But the sweetest summer fruit in Montana is the huckleberry. Oh, huckleberries. Though botanists have tried to propagate them outside of the wild places they thrive, thus far they have had no luck. So those who want to taste those tiny purply orbs of perfection must seek them out in their habitats (or pay a pretty penny at the Farmer's Market...but where's the satisfaction in that?). Today Greg and I sought them out along a trail in the Bitterroots at 6,000 feet, where they nestled among lodgepole pines and provided dappled shade for the pale pink pipsissewa flowers scattered like stars on the forest floor.
In the summer, we walk amongst the pines and firs and larches, eyes constantly scanning for the dusty purple fruit that peeps bashfully from under bright green leaves. At first it seems that there's not much to be had--a few huckleberries here, a few there. But then we hit the jackpot, low bushes that are covered with, weighed down by, their fruit. We settle in, fingers plucking greedily. But after awhile, the motion becomes meditative, the quiet of the forest seeps in, and we settle into a silence broken only the buzzing of insects or a crackle of twigs as we shift position. Our Nalgene bottles fill slowly, our fingers become reddish and sticky, and our taste buds thrill with the occasional bursts of sweetness when we toss a huckleberry, or six, upon our tongues.
In the winter, these scenes flash through my mind when I go to the freezer for a bag of frozen cherries, or raspberries, or huckleberries, to put in a smoothie or bake into a crumble. I savor the taste of summer on my tongue, just for a moment.
In the summer, I can eat fruit without that nagging guilty feeling, without mentally calculating the long miles a banana or apple has come to find its way into the fluorescent-lit pile at the Orange Street Food Farm.
In the summer, I can walk out my back door, take a few steps through the yard, kneel in the garden, and gently lift the soft, serrated strawberry leaves to find the heart-shaped fruit beneath.
In the summer, I duck under the long, spiny canes of raspberries and blackberries, hunker down against the fence, and fill bowl after bowl with magenta and purply-black thimbles of fruit. The sweat drips down my face and the spines leave pale scratches (and, occasionally thin spiderwebs of blood) on my skin, but the raspberries taste all the sweeter for my small toil.
In the summer, I race the fat eastern fox squirrels for the handful of cherries our little cherry tree produces--dreaming of the day when it will bear hundreds--pulling them off the stem before they're fully ripe, spitting the pits into the grass. (I think the squirrels still ate more than I did.) (There's always next year.)
In the summer, because we want more cherries than our young tree can produce, Greg and I take an afternoon to drive north a couple of hours to the eastern side of Flathead Lake, where dozens of cherry farms line the shores, the fat globes of fruit calling out to be picked. We strap on well-used cherry picking buckets and wander among the trees, plucking pounds upon pounds of cherries, hearing the satisfying thunk-thunk-thunk as we pile them on top of one another. Later that evening, or perhaps the next, we'll spread out old sheets on the living room floor, choose a movie or two on Netflix, and, armed with bowls, quart-size freezer bags, and cherry pitters, pit our 40 or 60 pounds of cherries, staining our hands a deep purple that will linger on our fingertips for days.
But the sweetest summer fruit in Montana is the huckleberry. Oh, huckleberries. Though botanists have tried to propagate them outside of the wild places they thrive, thus far they have had no luck. So those who want to taste those tiny purply orbs of perfection must seek them out in their habitats (or pay a pretty penny at the Farmer's Market...but where's the satisfaction in that?). Today Greg and I sought them out along a trail in the Bitterroots at 6,000 feet, where they nestled among lodgepole pines and provided dappled shade for the pale pink pipsissewa flowers scattered like stars on the forest floor.
In the summer, we walk amongst the pines and firs and larches, eyes constantly scanning for the dusty purple fruit that peeps bashfully from under bright green leaves. At first it seems that there's not much to be had--a few huckleberries here, a few there. But then we hit the jackpot, low bushes that are covered with, weighed down by, their fruit. We settle in, fingers plucking greedily. But after awhile, the motion becomes meditative, the quiet of the forest seeps in, and we settle into a silence broken only the buzzing of insects or a crackle of twigs as we shift position. Our Nalgene bottles fill slowly, our fingers become reddish and sticky, and our taste buds thrill with the occasional bursts of sweetness when we toss a huckleberry, or six, upon our tongues.
In the winter, these scenes flash through my mind when I go to the freezer for a bag of frozen cherries, or raspberries, or huckleberries, to put in a smoothie or bake into a crumble. I savor the taste of summer on my tongue, just for a moment.
