Raspberry Days

Raspberries are one of my favorite berries. I love the way they taste and even the little seedy things they have don't bother me much. They aren't cheap to buy at the store so I don't buy them as often as I would a bunch of grapes but I do buy them regularly. This afternoon as I was washing the new bunch of berries we had just bought my oldest son Z. came in and popped some in his mouth. He just went "ummm, I love these". So I asked him if he remembered the first time he ate raspberries. Naturally he couldn't so I told him.

We were living overseas in Finland and didn't have a car. We relied on walking, public transportation and our bikes for getting from one place to another. Z. was only two at the time so he had a chair on the back of my bike that he rode in. Since it was summer at the time I was taking Z. out to the beach to play in the sand.

It was about a three mile ride through forested areas on a bike path. I kept noticing these bushes that people would be at with buckets, but never stopped to see what they were picking until that day. So that afternoon on the way home we finally stopped to see what was growing. It was raspberries and they were everywhere. So we started to pick some. My son just ate as many as he could straight from the bushes and so did I. They were delicious. We picked a few and put them into a bucket and rode on home. Z. just held the bucket of berries in his hands while I rode and ate some more. That was the first of many trips we took to go out raspberry picking.

To this day it is one of my favorite memories I have of being in Finland. Things just moved at a slower pace for us in Finland and we actually took the time to enjoy things. If we would have had a car I never would have noticed the bushes and found the raspberries. So as I eat my raspberries today, I am also remembering the raspberries I ate before which just makes them taste that much better.