I stood in my backyard in mid-June, staring at a white sheet I’d spread under my mulberry tree — stained a deep, irreversible purple — and I just wanted to cry. I had timed everything wrong, wasted two full weekends, ruined a good bedsheet, and still barely managed a decent harvest. If you’re just getting … Read more
There I was, standing on my back deck in my favorite white linen shirt, arms raised triumphantly over my mulberry tree, when the branch I was tugging snapped back and pelted me with approximately forty perfectly ripe berries. I looked like a crime scene. My shirt, my hands, my deck, my dignity — all casualties … Read more
I want to tell you about the morning I spread a brand-new white bedsheet under my mulberry tree, stepped back to admire my cleverness, and then watched my dog sprint directly through the center of it, sending two pounds of freshly fallen berries into the air like a purple fireworks display. She came inside looking … Read more
Last summer, I climbed a wobbly extension ladder propped against my 20-foot mulberry tree, grabbed a branch way above my head, and promptly watched the whole ladder slide sideways along the trunk. I grabbed the branch. The ladder hit the grass. I hung there like the world’s least graceful ornament, covered in mulberry juice, heart … Read more
I walked back into my kitchen looking like I’d lost a fistfight with a giant squid. Both hands were stained the deep, accusatory purple of a cartoon villain. My white t-shirt — my favorite white t-shirt — had a splatter pattern that could generously be described as “modern art.” My face apparently had some mulberry … Read more
There I was, standing in my backyard in a white linen shirt — a white linen shirt, of all things — absolutely convinced my mulberry tree had finally hit its peak. I popped a berry into my mouth with the confidence of a seasoned homesteader. Reader, it was like biting into a tiny sour grape … Read more
