My mulberry tree....

Several mulberry trees have sprung up with all the rain this spring. It's hard to believe that these volunteer trees can grow so large so quickly. If I had planted them and wanted them to grow, my brown thumb would have killed them. They are not where I want them in my yard and they will be cut down in the next few days. However, I had to go out tonight and pick the purple berries.

Until I was 7 years old, my family lived in a house near downtown Beatrice. We had a mulberry tree in the backyard and I remember picking them in the summer and eating a bowl full with cream and sugar on them for breakfast. One of my family stories from when I was too young to talk was when I was being cared for by my grandma while my mom was in the hospital having my baby sister. Grandma knew I wanted something but I couldn't say the words to communicate it to her. Finally, I got the bowl she had put the mulberries in the day before and she got me some more mulberries. I would have been 16 months old. I cannot remember it, of course, but I loved the story when my grandma told it. Mulberries make me think of grandma.

Mulberries are, at least to me, an old fashioned berry. They do not have a lot of taste but are sweet. When I went out to pick some of the berries, my neighbor came out and she had never had mulberries. She got a bowl to pick berries also. She is about half my age. We had fun picking berries and visiting and feeling like we were getting back to nature with our berry picking.

I'm going to keep picking the berries until they cut it down. Seems like a waste to do otherwise. I know what I'm having for breakfast in the morning.

Nebraska Nellie