Monday, July 13, 2009
The rest of the story....
On Grandma and Grandpa Adamson's homestead in Nampa, where Mom and Dad and the kids lived after their marriage, was a wonderous orchard filled with all manner of fruit and nut trees. A child's fantasy land for climbing, hiding, dreaming and taking nourishment during those long adventurous summer afternoons. At the back of the orchard were raspberry, blackberry and gooseberry bushes. These were the only gooseberry bushes I had ever seen or heard of. I remember eating them while they were green. They were very bitter of course as you were supposed to let them ripen to a deep reddish purple. But, I always did like sour stuff.
A couple of years ago, Wendy and I were talking about something, who knows what, but the subject of gooseberries came up. Apparently, her dad also raised gooseberries in Melba. Wendy said she hadn't heard of anyone else having them or knowing about them either. We thought that was a bit interesting. A year or so later, when we were having the tree planting party in the backyard for Dad, Wendy brought me a gooseberry plant. So fun. I set, it still in it's container, behind the wine barrels of petunias out by the shed, figuring to find a permanent home for it later. It is still in it's container in the same place behind the petunias. This it's 3rd summer, it bore a full pie's worth of plump juicy berries. Mom picked the berries and we gifted them to Wendy, who came to Ady's birthday party bearing the beautiful pie you see here. It was wonderful! It's especially good warm with vanilla ice cream, according to Chet! A great gift, a wonderful story and thanks for sharing!
2 comments:
Oh my what a wonderful story. Wendy is always great at surprises! I have a framed picture to prove it.
Kathleen's paternal grandparents also had gooseberry bushes the whole time we were growing up. I have also made gooseberry jam. Not too bad. Walter and I had a plant for years but finally took it out last year. Info from Kathleen's Aunt Eilena.
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