farmdoc's blog post number 271

Three years have passed since we planted our first few raspberry canes (a gift from Janet and Annie). And despite Sweetheart Vivienne’s pruning each Autumn/Winter, our raspberry patch has evolved into something of a jungle. A mini-jungle, actually, because it’s only about 3-metres long and a metre wide. Still and all, come picking time each morning and dusk, it’s not easy to see all the ripe raspberries to pick. Oftentimes they’re buried right in there. So on a superficial (and, yes, anti-clockwise) picking browse, it’s all too easy to miss them. What’s more, because the ones deep in are frequently missed, when they’re found they’re the biggest, juiciest and sweetest of all. Like life, really: the things that are easiest to access are mostly the mundane (which is by no means a reason to dismiss them). But it’s the things we have to search/work hard for, that are most delicious and fulfilling when we find/achieve them. And the searcher/worker doesn’t have to be hugely gifted. Rather, what’s needed is motivation, discipline and perseverance. Sweetheart Vivienne repeatedly says how hard it is to make progress with her writing. I reply that if it was easy, everyone would do it. Of course she’s a sagacious woman, so I’m telling her nothing she doesn’t already know. All I hope is that next time she approaches the raspberry canes secateurs in hand, she doesn’t overprune them.