Week 6 -- Theme

A Place

 The blueberry barrens, wide open space. Traveling through the village, past houses, and trees to a wide open space. Leaving the hot top road onto a narrow, winding dirt road which has you feeling as though you are in a dust cloud. Cause the dry, dirt of the road stirs up a cloud of dust behind you as you travel along. Not  to bad unless you should meet another car or come up behind another car then the dust is terrible. It takes a little time

until the dust settles back down. All of a sudden there isn't  much to see except wide open space.

Looking off to the west you could see a tree line in the horizon. But as you look to the north there is still nothing at the horizon. Looking off to the east, out across the field is a single pine tree or two. Standing straight and tall all by its lonely. There are areas of tall grass, swaying back and forth in the early morning breeze.  Traveling a little further, oh look there are at least some rocks. A few small rocks jutting out of the ground. On occasion you will see huge boulders sitting proud. Some areas are flat and others are hilly.

Arriving to the section of where we are going to be working today. We get out our rakes and buckets. The area is all sectioned off into rows, with white twine. As you look across the field in either direction all you can see is the white twined off rows, some old and some new. The old is all zig zag, broken and in no sense of order. But the new is straight, long rows, which are about 12 to 14 feet wide. Other cars are starting to pull in they line up down the row, pulled into the area where the blueberries have already been raked. There are piles of empty boxes waiting to be filled. By the piles of boxes there are what is called winnering machines. These are machines which the blueberries are emptied into and most of the leaves are removed and the blueberries fall down the belt into the box.

It is a cool morning so everyone has on long sleeves and pants. The dew is still sitting on the blueberry bushes. The rakers, men, women and children get their buckets and rakes and wander down to the next available row. Now by mid morning if you look out across the field there are 20, 30, or 40 people of all shape, size, color and ages. Big buckets, little buckets, white, black,or red buckets, many different colors and shapes of buckets. Staggered out across the field, the people standing up, bending over, standing up cleaning their rake, emptying the berries in the buckets. Buckets upside down with little people sitting on them. Buckets here and buckets there. Buckets full of blueberries, waiting for another bucket to get full, easier to lug two buckets evenly than to lug only one.

By noon time the scene is changing the  sun is getting high and it is getting hot. Some people are now down to shorts and tank tops, others still in pants and short sleeved shirts and still others (men) down to no shirt at all. The piles of empty boxes is getting smaller or gone completely. The empty piles have turned into stacked boxes full of blueberries. Two, three, five or ten to a stack. Some stacks standing alone, others stacked together in a row of two or three stacks. The truck comes and off loads more piles of empty boxes down along the way. Then it comes back to where we began in the morning and start to load the full boxes of blueberries on the truck to go to the factory.

Lunch time, most everyone gathers for lunch at the same time. Gathered around cars, with lunch coolers out everywhere. Kids running and playing. People eating. Some people still out in the field raking blueberries. Some people try to find a little bit of shade, but when it is wide open space that is hard to find. People finish eating and head back to their row where they were working. Around the area where everyone was eating, now you see soda cans, left over sandwiches, paper, cans and debris on the ground every where. Not a big deal that is the way it is every day. It will either blow away or get burnt next year or whatever.

By the end of the day, the piles of empty boxes are all stacked neatly awaiting to be loaded on the truck and hauled off to the factory. Not so many people staggered out across the field now. They are loading up their buckets, rakes, lunch coolers and whatever else to go home for the day. Now you see the dust clouds again as they go down the dusty dirt road. The blueberry barrens go from a quiet wide open space, to a busy hustle and bustle and back to a quiet, wide open space. Left behind are the three or four men that load the boxes of blueberries on the truck. Progress is being made as you can see the stacks getting to be fewer and fewer. To eventually all there is left is the piles of empty boxes and the winnering machines quietly waiting for the hustle and bustle of the next day.