Foraging.. and Remembering The Past

The other day I found wild blackberry bushes along the backyard fence line. They may appear to be everyday berries. But these are magic berries! At least for me they are, because they bring back a lot of happy childhood memories for me.

I grew up in a little poor town called Bloomingsburg, Ohio. Where I lived we also had a fence line. All along that fence grew blackberry bushes. In the summer, once they had ripened, my mom would hand me a big bowl and tell me to go fill it up. So my best friend Joey and I would spend all day outside picking these berries. My hands would be stained from the berries by the time I was done. The end result was a yummy blackberry pie my mom baked for us.

Not all of the berries are ripe yet, so I wasn't able to get a whole lot today. That's okay, I wanted just enough to put in the bread pudding I'm making. I just love going foraging and finding sweet things to eat. :)

I did forget that blackberry bushes have thorns. Ouch! My poor fingers. 

What have you done today?

2. What do I remember as most exciting about Samhain/Halloween as a child?

As a child Halloween was always my favorite holiday. It still is today. The most exciting thing for me then was getting to go TOTing with friends without parental supervision. It didn't happen often, so it was a treat. Of course this was a very small town and before there were razors in treats and other nasty illegal happenings going on. Every year I dressed up as a Witch or Gypsy (GO figure). I had about 5 friends that I regularly hung out with and we'd stick together as we walked all over town getting bags and bags of candy. We would have to come home and dump candy out and then go out for more. This was also before curfew as well. Stopping TOTing at 8pm was unheard of. By 8pm it was just getting good! Everyone also handed out candy and decorated their houses. Adults dressed up themselves. There were no streets that were dark and secluded. And if you dared to not hand out candy your house ended up with eggs and toilet paper on it! The whole town was lit up with orange and other various bright colors. I loved all the decorations!

This post is apart of my 31 Days of Samhain

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