What a difference a day makes

I am sure everyone has heard the adage that a watched pot never boils. I'm a pot watcher. Yep. Once spring arrives and little snippets of green begins to peek out everywhere, I am watching them. One of the things I always keep an eye on are my fruit trees and bushes. We have had a rough few seasons, being so very dry. Last year, we had barely an apple, blackberry or blueberry. We actually let the birds and squirrel eat what they could. We took our lumps with no real sweets from our garden, thankful that we were able to share with the little birds that give us so much satisfaction. Even the fat squirrels had a good time on the apple tree. So, when things started to bud out this year, Luscious and I held our breath and promised not to watch. Just take a peek now and then.
It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks. Once a pot watcher, always a pot watcher.
Imagine my surprise when I went out to the back garden this evening to check for any fresh squash, zucchini and cukes - I saw ripe blackberries!
Just two days ago, this pot watcher observed and made digital confirmation of this:

One solitary ripe blackberry. I didn't even coo or whisper sweet things to Luscious. He has a bit of high blood and it isn't good to get him worked up too suddenly. Makes his head spin. (And I thought it was me that was making his head spin! oh, that's another story . . .) You see, his passion is blackberries. When he was a young boy, he and his sisters would skip school and pick buckets of wild blackberries. They knew that they would get a whuppin'. They made a pack not to tell their Ma. Problem is, being blackberry lovers, they ate most of the bucket. And they forgot to wash the evidence of the juice from their faces. I am certain they had seeds in their teeth as well.
Momma Lorraine, well, she didn't believe in sparing the rod, but she just couldn't bring herself to whup them because Luscious pleaded their case stating how they were hungry for her cobbler. What a sweet talker. Yep, he still can sweet talk and he still loves his blackberries. Look what he picked tonight:



I take a picture of his hands full of blackberries every year. I think we are going to have a nice crop of them. He picked enough for a decent cobbler.

I am now trying not to watch the blueberries. Or the apples. I watched the strawberries - the deer are better at that than I am.