Picking Blueberries

The farm I grew up on was self-contained. We grew our own food, and had to purchase only such basics as flour, coffee or sugar. After we started growing sorghum we made our own syrup and sweetened a lot of our food with that. The flour came in flowered cloth bags, usually saved and used to make dresses for the girls. They were of soft gingham and made comfortable garments. If one wanted white bags, for diapers for example, they were available. The women of the neighborhood would save their bags, wash them and bring them over as presents for the new baby. The material was absorbent and wore forever. When they were no longer needed for diapers, they made great cleaning rags.
Growing our own food meant a lot of work, though, and summer vacation was usually more work than vacation. Hoing, pulling weeds, making hay, picking strawberries and green beans, the work was never ended. I do remember one summer, though, when we spent about a month picking wild blueberries and we all enjoyed that. It happened to be a year when the conditions for the blueberries was particularly favorable and it produced a bumper crop. We would all crowd into the old Ford and rattle off down the sandy dirt road to some remote clearing in the piney woods, where we would climb out, each carrying a tin pail. To pick the berries, one had only to reach up into the underside of the bush and pull off handfuls of the plump, succulent berries. We picked on our hands and knees. smelling the fragrant scent of the pine trees, and trying not to get too far from the rest of the family. Squirrels chattered, birds sang and there was usually a spring or little brook nearby for a drink. We thought nothing of drinking the water, and I don't remember ever getting sick from it. When our pails were full, we went home and sorted the berries, packing them into little wooden boxes to be picked up the next day by the packing people who paid cash for them. We made enough money to buy our school clothes that year. I remember that Mother always had a fabulous meal ready for the hungry bunch coming home with the days pickings.