The Joys of a Mulberry
It had been a particularly long day of work in my Baton Rouge office, a fluorescently lit, windowless space where I stare at a computer screen and am occasionally reminded by my Fitbit to get out of my chair and move. After a three-hour virtual working session, my temples pounded from my headset and the stress of getting a system migrated within a 3-hour timeframe.
When I finally came up for air I checked my phone, answered a couple of missed texts, and made a note to check the voicemail from my aunt later during my commute. I was halfway home before I remembered to check the message, but instead of my aunt’s voice, it was my uncle’s.
“I just noticed on my mulberry trees that the berries are getting ripe and falling. So if you want to experience the joys of a mulberry, there behind Granny’s house on the little sloping hill that goes up where the fence line is, there is a mulberry tree that has an overhanging limb and usually has a good many mulberries on there….So if you and Mike want to adventure a little bit, you can check out the mulberry tree.”
Instantly, my day melted away with this “Why Woodville?” moment. Mike and I purchased “Granny’s house” and its small plot of land from my aunt and my dad in 2016 never imagining we’d one day live in Woodville full time. I once asked my grandmother how she came to live there. When they got married my grandfather asked her where she wanted to live, and having lived in the country all her life, she replied, “Get me as close to Main Street as possible.” Granny’s house is just a block north of the thoroughfare.
Mike and I now live in the adjacent house and property we purchased the following year. As we’ve cleaned both properties and thought about what to do with Granny’s house, which is in poor condition, we’ve made numerous discoveries of the Mississippi flora and fauna, but never the mulberry tree. In fact, after I walked around the backyard several times in search of the mulberry tree, I returned to the message from my uncle, using it as an audible treasure map. Finally I Googled “mulberry leaf identification” and struck gold. Well, sort of.
The tree is much taller than I thought it would be, but I was able to grab a leaf and pull the referenced “overhanging limb” just enough to get the berries in reach. In the end I was only able to find five ripe berries and about as many unripe. I’m not sure if the yield was simply poor or if the birds and squirrels feasted on the rest, but I’ll be on the lookout next year.
If you’ve never “experienced the joys of a mulberry,” you don’t know what you’re missing! It’s now my favorite of all the berries. In one article I read, someone called them “fireworks in your mouth,” and I can’t think of a better description.
