Once, in the great long ago that was my childhood I had elderberry jelly. Dad had seen some elderberry bushes growing in our subdivision and told me to go pick. Dutifully I did – every last itty bitty tiny berry went into the bucket.  Next he set me to cleaning. Luckily he had mercy and let me leave the littlest stems knowing they would be filtered out.  He did his magic and fillinga pillowcase with a dark liquidy mess left for work leaving instructions for me to watch and make sure it dripped into the bowl underneath.

Being an obedient daughter I did. Being young the thoughts of that mess ever entering my mouth made me gag.

After returning home Dad and working more magic small jars filled with dark purpley black something appeared on the counter. That something was elderberry jelly – dark and wonderful. Magic from the roadside.

Magic that only appeared at the table one long ago summer.

For years I’ve been wanting to make elderberry jelly but never succeeded. Always saw the bushes blooming and told myself to remember but always forgetting until the season was past. This year I saw the bushes blooming along my road. This year I made myself keep seeing: blooms, faded flowers, beginning berries, clusters and finally heavy heads sagging under the weight of ripe berries.

I’d also been telling my children about my watching. “See those blossoms, see those green berries, see those purple ones, see…it won’t be long now.”

Then the business of late summer arrived. The day for picking was always tomorrow. Li answered “that’s what you always say but we never do.”

Ouch! truth hurts.

“Today”, I announced, “when Seventeen is home and after drama class we will pick.”

After dinner, in the twilight we went and picked our elderberries. I’d like to post pictures of our adventure – the ditch we didn’t know was there and the Baptists leaving worship who were blessed with a free comedy show but we didn’t think to bring a camera. We brought ourselves, our buckets, some kitchen shears and a sense of humor. 

Our buckets of berries: smaller ones are two gallons and larger one is five.

Li raking the berries off with a fork. This gets most of the stems but not all. Much faster than picking off individually. The juice gets strained so is fine.

Seveteen trying not to smile. We are nearly finished. The front bucket is full of stems, the canning jar is full of bugs – about 10.

Seventeen’s purple stained fingers over the finished berries. That is my largest stock pot and is 3/4 full of berries. There would have been more but Little Missey tried one and ended with handsful.

Now the berries are covered with water, waiting in the refridgerator for jelly making tomorrow.

Tomorrow which comes on Thursday this week.

Continuing in our series of ‘where have you been’

Cake made by her brothers & sister with complete with fire to blow out!Choosing a present takes serious consideration.