First I must say how thankful I am to be dealing with real blackberries. Not the kind that mean you have a serious office job and must be in constant contact with bosses, clients, co-workers even when you are nowhere near a computer.But the kind that bear succulent fruit. The kind that we've paid a lot of money to occasionally treat ourselves to a small pint of out east. The kind that prior to Oregon, we would never have imagined hacking to death with a vengeance.
But hack to death we have.
The blackberries are ready for us. They see us coming and they are prepared.
So are we, we say, shrugging it off. We've got long sleeves, long pants, serious boots, snips and a feverish desire to make way for some perennial beds.
The berries laugh. Have you seen what we can do? Cut us all you want they say. Thorns like the sharpest cats claws, curving, catch and hang when you excitedly take a glove off to salvage some moss... They wait and get you when they can. They are amazing. They hoard things that are not picked up in time. Archaeological digs is what Neil called it to Polly and James. We find their past projects and often that involves a lot of pots. The blackberry vines grow through that rich potting soil and make a sharp V growing back up and out, which ensnares the pot. They shoot roots out right there to anchor the pots or other bounty down and leaf forward. Their roots are little leaves of what they will become.I tried to honor them.
I talked highly of them while we hacked and piled their stems up for long term composting.
I took photos in awe of them.
And earlier than Neil, I called it a day. It's addictive work, but I knew we had planned a good deal of indoors night work and that would need leftover energy. The sun was about to set. We were also set to work with Steve for the first time at 7am on Sunday, transplanting tomatoes and other seedlings.
We had cleared the bulk of the patch we want to till up and start planting in. We had created a lush pile of potting soil from emptying all the pots we found and we had, for the most part, unearthed a handy 3 part compost structure.It was still so nice out though and Neil kept hacking. I thought, maybe I'll stay out a little longer, too, see if there's an odds and ends bit to do and then straighten up with Neil when he's done. So I ended up on the other side of our large northern bamboo thicket. I moved some broken pieces in out of the drive, accessing what we could cut, where we might want to transplant from. I was about to round the corner back towards Neil and was pushing in some broken bamboo, noticing some old blackberry vines. Hard, dry and sharp thorns, thinking about cutting them out another day.
I don't know how it actually happened, just that as it was, I felt an intense stupidity and then a freakish pain.
A vine took it's retribution. And thorned me in my right eyeball.
So fast, my eye was wide open. Wrestling bamboo, with spring-loaded thorn-vines mixed in at eye level - incredibly unwise. Dusk was a contributing factor.
Lesson of the Day: Respect the Blackberry Vines. Understand they are prepared for you + spring-loaded with thorns that are like having a cat claw you directly in the eye. Wear EYE PROTECTION.
*****as a footnote: Neil wanted to go to the hospital. I resisted as we don't have insurance and thought I could keep it closed and sleep it out. I did flush immediately, lots of watering, I iced it on and off and founds pressure points to help it water more. Then had a fitful 15 hours of laying down and trying to stay peaceful, it hurt sharply a number of times, but by 11am seemed to be fuzzy and not sharp and here I am. Grateful and a mistake wiser...*****
