For ten years we have come to Coloma Michigan on vacation. We always include a morning of blue berry picking. Year by year we pay a visit to Bumbleberry Farm in South Haven. The farm is own and operated by a family, which caters to families that enjoy the seasonal experience of picking. First, you purchase a white bucket, when filled holds five pounds of berries. Then you walk a short distance to the rows of berry bushes, labeled with the berry variety, one or more varieties ripe, open for picking.

Berry picking is a meditative activity. Proceeding slowly between the two rows of chest-high bushes, searching for clusters of dark blue berries, the ripe ones are nudged into your bucket. There’s no need to rush, and no technique will accelerate the filling of your bucket. Just settle in, and methodically focus upon clusters of dark blue berries. The work is also pleasantly social when friends or family members are within voice distance. What better physical surrounding for free flowing conversation than the earth below and a blue sky above? 

I imagine Bumbleberry Farm to be an idyllic place. That’s what my imagination does, whenever we visit. I remember the small farm in Johnston County North Carolina, where my mother grew up. A family farm, nature sustaining a family, members work in close proximity to one another. The work with others is life. And time, the master of all, moves at the measured pace of sunrise to sunset, and of the changing seasons. 

The possible forms of life are infinite. Many corrosive, antithetical life-styles to human flourishing are celebrated by social consensus. I default to the family farm; the actual down-to-earth foundation for every other form of thriving.

I took a few photos while at Bumbleberry Farm.