I love blueberries. Everything about them helps an old person like me feel and be healthy.
The article in the June 19 Cloverdale Reporter (sister paper to the Leader) about the promotion of this fabulous product by the Cloverdale Business Improvement Association made me happy in this dismal economic environment.
However, there’s a downside to my love affair with this gorgeous berry – the fact that I am forced to endure three months of living in a war zone to enjoy their fabulous burst of flavour.
From 6:30 in the morning to eight o’ clock at night I hear an incessant barrage of cannons. (Incessant because local farmers do not bother to adhere to bylaws that require stopping between 12 and three in the afternoon. Would you adhere if there were no penalties?)
This is also called the “control of starlings guns,” although many observant people prefer to call it “the three-second flock rise and fall guns,” since there is no appreciable reduction of bird activity because of the guns.
I think it would be interesting if people had to make similar commitments to obtain other food sources. Perhaps waterboarding for the taste of cranberries, bamboo shoots under the nails for blackberries, or drinking toxic roadside pesticides in order to sample a few salmonberries.
Let’s really get into the war mentality that proper agriculture requires, since it’s really a fight to the finish against those forces of nature out there.
I’m all for napalm against bees, for example, since their stings cause allergic reactions, and heaven knows what honey does to our waistlines. Let’s get our nutritional military priorities straight!
R H
Surrey
