This is the vision I had in mind when I set out for Elizabeth’s blackberry bush with my pruners this morning.

I have been collecting china that lets me believe I could drink a  Nova Scotia summer in a tea cup!  I spent many summers collecting wild blackberries from brambles a good deal taller that I was in the woods behind our family home.  I’d come back all scratched up with ice cream containers full of berries. I’d fill up our deep stainless steel sink with water and swish the blackberries about until they were clean and glistening. Then I would strain them up into my hands like I was gathering up all the stars from the night’s sky.

I couldn’t just snip a branch and be on my way though – you never know when you’re going to need a good picture of a blackberry and they were so beautiful in the early morning light!

I liked these green ones hiding in the shadow of the roses, and I would have missed them if I didn’t pause to enjoy the moment. Did you know that roses and blackberries are related? I guess you don’t have to be pricked to many times to figure this one out.

Then there were these dark beauties basking lush in the full sun.

I love the graceful arch of the branch laden with ripe fruit and all armed with thorns!

And it’s interesting to see all the hues of ripening on the same branch.

How did I not even eat one of these? Oh, how I sacrifice for my art!

Now I’m just having a hard time picking out a favorite photo, perhaps I’ll have to do more than one painting!