Last night we set out as a family on our bikes. It was Regan's maiden voyage on her new 'trail-a-bike' that we found at a garage sale. It took daddy a little while to rig it up to mommy's bike, but once in place, it was a pretty smooth ride.
When Regan decides she wants to pedal forwards, you can really tell the difference, so, we put our feet in motion and challenged daddy to a race! We actually got him to say uncle, at least briefly. We all got our heart rates up and had grins from ear to ear. Regan loved beating daddy, even if only for a moment. (It also didn't hurt that mommy strategically put two gallons of milk in Sage's trailer for the trip home!!)
On the way home, daddy showed us a bush he saw people eating berries from. We stopped to try a couple and they were tasty. A little searching on line and we found out they are mulberries. They grow on a bush/tree, much different than their look-a-like, the blackberry. The internet said some of the varieties grow to be 40'-80' tall!
Our church has a 'Pie-fest' tomorrow, so I decided the mulberries would make the perfect ingredient for the pie I needed to bring. The timing was perfect, because I didn't have a clue what I was going to make.
Regan and I dropped Sage off at Mima's and went to pick. We donned some old clothes and shoes, because it is a very messy job. I picked about 9 cups, enough for two pies. I am guessing Regan picked about 4-5 cups, but they pretty much all went in her belly. About half while we were picking and the other half at Mima's house immediately following.
As we were picking, I contemplated how I had passed this tree literally hundreds of times and never noticed it before. I could understand if all those trips had been at 45 mph in the car, but we pass this bush at least 3 times a week coming and going to Grandma's on the bike trail. The bush sits right along the path, dropping ripe berries all over the path. It made me wonder how many of life's simple pleasures I pass right by all the time without noticing.
As we were picking, it always seemed like the best and biggest berries were just out of reach. There was some truth to this, because others before us had picked the easy to reach ones. But I also found that when I moved to a different spot, I kept seeing all kinds of berries I missed in the spot I had just picked. They kind of hide under the leaves. I reflected on how this relates to life and how from our perspective everything always looks bigger and better somewhere else. Sometimes we move or reposition ourselves to reach the bigger and better, only to find that we had things pretty good right where we were at.
We returned to Mima and Papa's to have 'kissy time' with Regan's berry stained face. Papa refused the offer but ceased the Kodak moment. Then we packed the troops up, them in the burley, me on roller blades and headed home. The berries are now transformed into two lovely looking pies, sitting on my stove to cool.
Now the debate is...do we indulge in some ourselves? or do we bring both of them to church tomorrow. Oh, the sweet temptation!!
(edited to add: They both made it to church Sunday. Of course I had to sample and they were delicious! I used this crust recipe and this pie recipe.)
