Blueberry picking at Bear Meadows bog: a public service message


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I took a break from berry picking yesterday to record this important message for anyone considering making the trip to Bear Meadows to pick highbush blueberries. (I didn’t have a tripod with me; I just strapped the camera to a sturdy blueberry bush.) The patch is completely over-rated. In addition to all the dangers I enumerate in the video, it’s also quite easy to get lost if you try to take the scenic route back through the state forest, as my mother and I discovered yesterday. One wrong turn and we became hopelessly disoriented, despite the fact that I’ve visited this part of the forest many, many times, on car and on foot. The state forest roads all look pretty much alike. Conclusion: please stay at home and watch cat videos on the internet. Thank you.

9 Replies to “Blueberry picking at Bear Meadows bog: a public service message”

  1. Wow, Dave. Damned with not even faint praise. (grin.) Can’t figure out if this will encourage people to Bear Meadows, as in Brer Rabbit’s exhortation to not go near the brier patch, or if it is truly that fearful a place. Did that bear really appear right next to you?
    At present, during our heat wave in MO, I’m not even making it to the woods at the end of our street, but I’ll eschew the cat videos if you don’t mind and stick to PBS. (grin)

  2. Thanks, y’all. I should be less of a coward and turn on comments at YouTube, but am afraid to see how many people might actually take it seriously.

    Joan, I cheated on the bear footage. That was actually taken here (from my kitchen window). All the rest of it was shot at Bear Meadows, and the scene where my right leg was almost trapped in the blog was unstaged.

  3. Dave, I suspected as much about the bear, but I never ruin a good poem with accuracy anyway. You never mentioned West Nile virus. :)

    The Dave Song

    I’m from the eastern edge of western Pennsylvania
    Next to a valley on a woody mountaintop.
    Now if picking mountain berries is your mania
    This story here will make you want to stop.

    Oh damn! Just hear the sloshing of the bog here.
    If you left your waders home your shoes is ruined.
    Giant skeeters and West Nile are something I fear
    Plus behind me in a tree is that big bruin.

    Don’t wander far in Beary Meadows bog now
    Cause you could very easily get lost.
    The moral of my story’s pretty much how
    Bear Meadows bog ain’t hardly worth the cost.

  4. Thanks Dave, but I believe Roy’s song compared to my metrically challenged and hastily composed ditty is quite a few shades better! Thanks for the link… And ..Stephen Vincent Benet? Thought he just wrote stories. Who knew..

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