Journey of a Thousand Miles: Bountiful Blueberries!

Monday, September 8, 2008

Bountiful Blueberries!

We went blueberry picking again last week. Kendall wanted to take a picture of me with my blueberries. I will admit that this photo is rather deceiving...Even though I was picking furiously and I thought surely I must be keeping up with Kendall...he filled one bucket and then finished filling mine.

Still no bears in the blueberry patch...

By the way, a gallon of blueberries is selling for $35 here. Might be a decent little side job! Until frost, that is. Then they're done. And the way things are feeling around here, frost could come soon. It was hot (well, Northwest Ontario's brand of hot) literally through the end of August. Overnight before September 1 or 2 it got cold. And now it's not hot anymore. Now we're chilly. We don't currently have a working furnace in this house. September 15 is the big day when the repairmen are coming. Until then we will be using electric heaters, a down-filled duvet, and a heated mattress pad. And I'm not joking.

4 comments:

Jen Bontrager said...: Way to go, Sal!; September 8, 2008 at 4:49 PM
Twila said...: Kendall, just checking to see if there were any rocks in the bottom of your blueberry bucket?
Dad; September 8, 2008 at 9:48 PM
Dave Gloria said...: Hey, just where were all those blueberries "hiding", when WE were looking for them?! Hmmm...maybe there were some "divided"!? interests, with a big powerful 4-wheeler that "NEEDED" to be driven...anyway, it looks like you found the perfect blueberry patch! Good for you... Mom; September 9, 2008 at 1:14 PM
Dave & Gloria said...: Karen, I sure enjoy reading about your experieces in Red Lake. Your style of writing is fun to read. Did you freeze some blueberries or just eat them quickly? Jodi's garden is still putting out big amounts of produce. Yesterday Jodi gave me permission to pick grn beans & tomatoes. The golf cart was loaded w/ a bushel of tomatoes & 2 I.C. buckets of beans! Leah & I managed to sneak a few handfulls of red raspberries before Jodi caught us. YUMMY! I want to say Karen, our family really does miss you all, but we are not mad at you for choosing to live for a year in Red Lake. We are hoping tho, that you will return.... We'll love you forever tho, regardless where you choose to live. Aunt Julie; September 10, 2008 at 8:40 AM

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"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Lao-tzu

July 1, 2008
This journey so far has taken me one thousand and four miles from my hometown, but I’m having trouble putting my finger on the single step that began it all. Was it Monday afternoon at the border when they gave me my official document allowing me to pass? Was it Saturday morning when we started the car and drove out of Goshen in our funny little caravan? Was it in February when we came up to Red Lake for a job interview at the hospital? Was it two Christmases ago being up here with Kendall’s family and all of us rating our desire to live up here? (I can’t say my number on a scale of 1 – 100 was high, but it was the highest of all the in-laws, so I guess I’m the chosen one.) Was it three years ago almost to the day that Kendall first said, “What if we’d move up here?” (I tried to ignore that one for several months, thinking surely it would go away.) Or was it June 10, 2000 when I married Kendall and made some solemn promises before God and all these witnesses? Was it a night before Kendall and I were married when we talked about moving to Red Lake? (It was a far off and romantic possibility at that time.) Or was it living in and visiting different cultures at different times in my life? Could the first step have been when my parents brought me as a baby to this same area for a year of voluntary service? (Kendall wasn’t born yet, but I surely saw his parents as they chatted with mine from time to time.) What about when my dad lived on a nearby reserve for two years before he was married? Or when my mom visited this town with her family as a teenager? Or maybe it had something to do with choices my grandparents made? Or other ancestors farther back?

At any rate, moving into this house where I slept for a few weeks as a baby and where my dad stayed as a teenager, has made me very aware of roots. And how they affect our lives and choices and passions.

I suspect there is no single step that began our move a thousand miles away from Indiana. It seems, rather, to be a coming together of so many different factors. (Not the least of which is marrying a man who has taken this land as a very part of his being. And for all the ways I can tease him and get annoyed at some of his woodsman ways, I really do mean that in a reverent and respectful way.)

So here we are, a thousand miles from nowhere. (Oops…I meant a thousand miles from Goshen.) I know that we safely made the journey here, but mostly our journey is just beginning. And mostly I’m excited.

Journey of a Thousand Miles

Monday, September 8, 2008

Bountiful Blueberries!

4 comments:

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Lao-tzu

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