Blackberry Winter . . . Class action suit filled against Mother Nature

by Richard L. Thornton, Architect & City Planner

A fellow jest can’t get no respect these days. By Friday, May 8th, I had hundreds of beautiful red strawberries ready to pick on Saturday morning in my new agricultural mini-terraces. I planned to pick and freeze the berries, bright and early on the next day. Shezam! I got up Saturday morning and there were halves and quarters of ripe strawberries splattered across the landscape. No ripe berries on the strawberry plants!

I assumed that a family of possums or raccoons had gotten into my strawberry beds Friday night. Oh no! The brazen criminals were bold enough to continue their foul deeds in the daylight.

I looked out the kitchen window, while wishing my sister, “Happy Mothers Day” on the phone . . . and there were a half dozen squirrels darting in and out of my strawberry beds. In a matter of seconds they would dive into the beds, grab a ripe strawberry and then scurry up a big oak tree to sit on a limb to munch on the berry.

The younger ones were not quite as skilled in this outrageous flaunting of personal property rights. They would take a bite and then drop the spoiled fruit onto the ground below. There are now red splatters all over my garden and driveway. As I said . . . a fellow jest can’t get no respect these days.

The last straw for my patience with Mother Nature occurred this morning. Last night the pretty new Latina weather gal said that it was going to be beautiful today with blue skies and temps reaching the mid 70’s. I planned to get up this morning . . . shoot my slingshot at some squirrels lurking above my garden and then strike out into the woods behind my house to continue clearing land for a log barn.

Oh no! I woke up this morning to the sound of cold, drizzling rain. You know its that sound that makes you want to stay in bed during November and December. Then I look at the weather radar from an Atlanta TV station and see snow only 20 miles north of me. The forecast changed to cold rain mixed with snow all day with violent thunderstorms and the possibility of tornadoes on Thursday. A fellow jest can’t get no respect these days!

Now we’uns here in the mountains with high falluting college degrees are not quite convinced that Mother Nature actually created the coronavirus. We strongly suspect that some mad scientists somewhere, created something horrific that jumped out of the bottle. So we will give her a benefit of a doubt on that one. However, having winter weather on May 12th is definitely a violation of the Declaration of Independence thing about the pursuit of happiness.

Its called Blackberry Winter here in the True South and also in Europe. The time when the blackberry vines are a mass of blooms is often accompanied by brisk air and blue skies like was supposed to happen today. In the True North (Canada) they have Blackberry Summer, cause their blackberry blossoms don’t appear until we here in the True South are already skinny dipping.

Nevertheless, it is a violation of our civil rights to look at snow on a TV station radar on May 12th. If we wanted to do that, we would live in the True North. I call on all warm blooded Americans to join in our class action suit against Mother Nature, demanding that she get her act together. You may join in on the suit by signing the petition at Room 212, Federal District Court of the Southern Appalachians in Plum Nelly, Georgia. Plum Nelly is plum out of North Carolina and nelly outa Jawja.

Litigation costs are being covered by the Plum Nelly Tanning Bed and Telephone Company, whose friendly offices are just behind the Dollar General on Hwy. 76. Y’all come visit them today and see their new Campbell’s Chunky Chicken Soup Can long range string can system, which can carry voice messages or Morse Code all the way from your house to your outhouse. You no longer have to scream for more toilet paper and have the nosy neighbors hear you!