TheBanyanTree: Death Awaits in My Blueberries

[B Drummond]

The blueberry bushes I planted in the backyard and I have had a rocky  
relationship over the years.  I planted two scrawny blueberry plants  
that I picked up from the equivalent of a "scratch and dent" sale  
back in '98 on a trip to my old haunts in the Florida panhandle.   
They appeared to be runts,  haggard, with a neglected look that said,  
"Call us Ichabods, for the glory has departed".  They may have been  
genetic culls but at such a good price that I thought it worth the  
effort to take a chance on them.

I planted them in the dense red clay of my backyard in north Georgia  
after spending hours of backbreaking work in a futile effort to break  
up that demonic dirt.  I finally gave up and said to myself, "That'll  
have to do."  Now, my understanding of the type of soil conducive to  
good blueberry production and the soil I planted them in are polar  
opposites.  Those blueberry bushes didn't, in my mind, stand a decent  
chance of ever producing a decent crop but there they were regardless.

Years passed, and typical of blueberries, their progress in  
establishing themselves in their new home  -- especially so with a  
"brick" foundation -- was slow at first.   But, much to my delight,  
after 3 or 4 years they suddenly took off.  They even expanded their  
range with small clones from their roots popping up and becoming part  
of an ever-expanding blueberry colony.

After the 5th year they finally produced a welcome, meager crop.   
Seeing this progress I was encouraged and spent the money on mulching  
them with a generous layer of peat moss.  They liked the acidic mulch  
so much that the next year they cast a bountiful crop of deep-blue  
berries that were superbly delicious.   The only problem I had with  
them from that point was keeping the birds out of them as they  
reached their peak ripeness.   At first I was perturbed by their  
robbing, but later reconciled it to be selfish of me to not share in  
the plants' celebration of life and bounty with the birds.  Besides,  
they didn't eat all of the blueberries and, with judiciously timed  
pickings, I always had more than I needed.

One day, while doing a pick over of the bushes, while I labored in  
the direct sun, I made a discovery that startled me.   The come back  
kids of my backyard world, that I witnessed overcome such odds, the  
source of pride and joy as I watched them year to year now give life- 
giving sustenance, held within their welcome shade a very unwelcome  
guest.

He was slick, cool, confident and expertly hidden.  As I looked in  
his eyes he seemed to stare back at me with a "What are you lookin'  
at?" glare that sent a shudder up my spine.  In an effort to dislodge  
him, I shook the bushes, stomped and poked at him with a small stick  
but he remained coiled expertly in the limbs of bushes, as if sewn in  
them by a fine tailor.   I found myself amazed and shaken by its  
audacity and cold-blooded resolve.

My gorgeous blueberry bushes suddenly lost their luster when I  
pondered that they now provided sustenance in at least two ways, with  
one of those two eliciting a ghastly horror in my mind.  When I  
imagined a small bird, like a sparrow or wren,  innocently entering  
the bushes in search of plump berries and shade, only to suddenly  
find death waiting to swallow it whole,  I became, frankly,  
nauseated.   What it would be like for the poor victim flooded my  
thoughts.  I pictured one engrossed by the lure of deep-blue berries,  
enjoying their taste and then, with a suddenness that took its breath  
away,  being violently seized with treacherous, overpowering, razor- 
teethed jaws, and, with what little of its very life's breath  
remained after the shock of the moment, having that last measure of  
its life squeezed out,  until its assassin, waiting patiently with  
its victim in its murderous embrace, until it knew that the dinner  
bell had finally rung.

Another June has come and gone and my blueberry bushes are bursting  
with fruit.   I continue picking them every few days.  I never pick  
them though without checking them carefully now for unwanted guests.   
I'm reconciled to the matter now, of course. When viewed from afar,  
through the lens of life as a whole it all makes perfect sense, but  
when initially viewed up so close that day it was a complete shock to  
learn that from time to time, death awaits in my blueberries.