The Reward

I know more than a few people who have gone huckleberry picking only once in their life.  They have every opportunity to go picking again but find the prospect a bit too close to actual work.

Gathering huckleberries can be challenging.  While I contend that huckleberries will grow only in strikingly beautiful mountainscapes, they also tend to flourish in the nearly inaccessible places there.

I recall one afternoon when I and my buddy Bill spent an entire afternoon desperately clinging to bushes growing on what was, essentially, a cliff.  The berries were large and plentiful on the cliff.  We wanted the berries.

I have often fallen down inclines and tumbled amid the crosswise deadfall.  I have threaded incautiously through rockslides.  I have crawled under thick brush.  All of this in the name of gathering huckleberries.  All of this while watching for bears and swatting at the horseflies whizzing around my head with bad intent.

At the end of a good day of picking huckleberries, a picker may have a gallon or two.  If three people go picking, at least one will likely end up with a bruise or a nasty scratch.  By the end of the trip, everyone will have a stiff back and sore feet.

Three months beyond all of that—on a cool sunshine day like yesterday—we pickers receive our just rewards.  Posted today are photographs of a collection of pickers gathered at my house to bake pies and make jam.  The house smelled of huckleberries for the whole day.  Reward for our days in the forest.

Can you find the smiley face in the huckleberry pie?

--Mitchell Hegman