Rain-Washed Raspberries

Day 337: The raspberries were very slow coming on this year, but they're making up for lost time. I haven't quite been able to keep pace with daily production, so I've started putting a few in the freezer with just a dash of sugar sprinkled over them. It's the way my mom put berries by, and whenever I was home from school, sick with a strep throat (something which seemed to happen every month over fall and winter), she'd break out a container of raspberries or strawberries for me to nibble while they were still frozen. For a few years, we lived in a spot with a pie cherry tree in the orchard, and although the fruit nearly always went in pies, I remember a few times when I was sick and allowed to eat the frozen sweet-tart cherries in lieu of berries. Those were good, too! That said, raspberry picking was one of my after-school chores and I hated it. I shared my mother's fear of spiders, and every arching branch seemed to be guarded by an enormous arachnid. Today, I know that these were Araneus diadematus, the Cross Orbweaver, but my mother called them "those damn triangular garden spiders" and the term is still one I use all too frequently when picking raspberries.