The gift that keeps giving

29 years ago my parents rented a duplex in Anchorage. There was an unpaved back lot for parking, a corner of which they got permission to plant a garden. And on the the far side of the building, in the sunniest corner of the yard against the fence, they planted some young raspberry bushes--starter shoots they transplanted from my dad's parents' house on Wentworth Street.

Almost two years ago, just after Charlotte was born, we moved into a duplex across town from where we had been living in West Anchorage. When spring finally arrived I went to task pruning, weeding, and gaining some semblance of order in the mass of raspberry bushes against the fence. By the end of summer I had picked several gallons of the largest raspberries I had ever seen.

This year, my largely pregnant self didn't get around to pruning back the bushes. Much to my happiness, though, we were greeted with heavily berry-laden bushes upon returning from vacationing in Denver for two weeks

So thank you Mom and Dad for planting the starts all those years ago. I'll bet you never dreamed your granddaughter would one day be devouring the fruit of your labor. And thank you Grandma and Grandpa...after all, without your raspberry bushes in the first place, where would I be now?

Craving a big bowl of ice cream and raspberries, that's where.