Blueberry picking in the hills near the Mississippi Delta.
By POOR WILLIAM
CLARKSDALE, Mississippi
Recently, four of us headed to the hill country around Charleston, MS to do some blackberry pickin’. Joey Young, a local artist, good friend, and important member of the Shack Up Inn and Rust Restaurant team, invited Madge, my daughter Galilee and me to go pick some wild blackberries on his property where the hills meet the Mississippi Delta in more ways than one.
The treasure trove of blackberries with accompanying bramble and stickers was an hour from Clarksdale, and we only had a few hours before Joey needed to be back at the Shacks plus my daily 4pm check-ins at the Clark House Residential Inn.
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Noon was hot, Delta ground was still moist and humid from recent rains, and the Hill Country Blues—R. L. and Cedric Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, Lightnin’ Malcolm, North Mississippi Allstars and Charlie Patton’s War—we listened to en route were smoking!
The hills were muggy, still, and offered up its produce warily. Acres of blackberries protected by serious thorns and stickers were ripe for the picking and the pricking. The tiny ones were tart, the red ones still bitter (yet sweet), and the larger ones juicy. The occasional “damn” was heard, copious amounts of water were consumed, and each and ever berry was appreciated. We ate one and stored one, so the take home was non-prodigious, but what we had in the way of fruit and relational connectivity was nothing short of awesome! It did our heats and souls good!
Delta Bohemian Excursions can take ya there on a Back Road Excursions, so holla at ya boy! pw
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