Can You Hear This?

I don’t know why it is that some of the tastiest things found in the South come with some of the most annoying critters known to man. As I was taught as a youngster that we are all God’s creatures, I spent many a moment scratching my head as what redeeming value a mosquito (known to Southerners as skeeters) had to the world. After nearly 40 years, I have yet to come up with a viable answer. They are a nusiance, miserable little things and if I stick my fair skinned toe out the door without proper sprayed-on protection, they FEAST on me. I mean, there won’t be a mosquito within a hundred miles if I’m indoors. Let me step outside without a good coating of “Deep Woods Off’ and you can hear ‘um comin’ for miles around. But I digress……

Strawberries ripen to their peak of perfection around late May, early June in South Carolina. I was fortunate in my youth to have had an abundance of this wonderous fruit readily available as my paternal Grandparents had a strawberry patch that covered several acres. I can remember as a child being able to wander up and down the rows eating whatever I chose to pick. Until that inevitable moment when someone would shout, “Grandpa bring the shovel, there’s a snake.” At that moment, I broke all speed records reaching the relative safety of the back porch. Once the erstwhile snake was discovered, shooed off and/or killed, I would not return to the field no matter what the persuasion. I have a healthy respect for snakes. South Carolina boasts several of the more deadly versions, two of which are the copperhead and the cotton mouth. Since my Daddy is shy (Southern speak for missin’) an index finger on account of a copperhead encounter in his youth, I keep my distance and, thankfully, most times, they keep theirs.

Then comes the hot, sultry dog days of late July, early August when blackberries grow ripe and succulent on their prickly vines. There is simply nothing better in the whole world than fresh, homemade blackberry cobbler with homemade vanilla ice cream. Just thinking about it would send us kids right out into the thicket picking for all we were worth. Then, of course, a few hours later, the next day at the latest, we were cursing the very idea of picking blackberries, pie or not. Why you ask? Well, I don’t know about other parts of the country but in South Carolina, in late July and August, blackberry patches are the convention grounds of choice for a nasty little critter called a chigger. Chiggers are actually worse than mosquitos! They don’t just bite, they burrow under your skin causing a gargantuan red welp and they itch like the very devil. Even worse, they’re favorite nesting spot is going to be that warm, tender skin found in your groin area. Misery, thy name is chigger. There is no real relief to this itchy problem and the only thing that shortens the duration of your misery is to paint the afflicted area with clear fingernail polish. Apparently, this effectively smothers the little critters ultimately bringing on their demise.

Then, of course, there are the peaches. South Carolina is not only home to the only water tower in the country shaped and painted to resemble a giant peach (although, in some folks view, it looks like a large butt looming over Interstate 85), it is the largest producer of peaches in the country, or at least it was the last time I bothered to check such agricultural statistics. Anyway, peaches also reach their peak ripeness under the oppressive heat of July and August. Everyone was eager to drive out to the local orchard, not far from my uncle’s house, and pick a bussel or two of peaches…………..except me, of course. Peaches that ripen and fall from the tree tend to ferment right there on the ground. The air is thick with the scent of fermenting peaches…….and, of course, the yellowjackets. Now, hopefully, most of ya’ll have heard of yellowjackets, if not, it’s like a mean cross between a regular honey bee and a wasp. Yellowjackets are antagonistic. You don’t really have to stir them up or anything. Step in the wrong spot at the wrong time and they will come after you. Yep, I know this from a particularly negative personal experience in my own back yard. (The experience was so bad that my little brother nearly died from it but that’s a story for another day.) Anyway, in addition to yellowjacket worries, peaches have two other things I learned to loathe, peach fuzz and peach tree sap. You get that stuff on you and you have once again discovered some of the most torturous itching in the world. Now you might wonder how a child would manage to get fuzz and sap on themselves. Well, when you’re small and easily lifted, it makes terrific sense to the adults around to lift you right up into those peach trees so you can pluck the most desirable fruits from the tree itself. To this day, I will not eat, cook or have any interaction whatsoever with peaches.

The point of this………..well, you just really appreciate that which you have to work for, even when it results in discomfort of some kind. As Clariee said “that which doesn’t kill us, makes us strong”. Or in this case, feeds us well !