It was the first week of August of 1977 and I and every other 11 year old boy I knew were out in the woods picking berries. I had been checking my favorite berry picking locations for a few weeks.

And when I woke up one morning I just knew that was the day my dog Mutt and I would be taking a few plastic buckets out for an adventure.

Mutt seemed just as pleased as I that the berries were fully ready for harvest.

She almost toppled me over trying to get out the living room door as I slipped on my sneaks.

When I stepped outside my nose was filled with the smell of ready-to-pick fruit from the plants that surrounded our home.

I searched around for some old buckets and found a couple I had previously used to collect worms, frogs, crayfish, or minnows in.

The bottoms looked kind of crusty so I gave them a good scrubbing with an old wooden horse brush.

Following a final sniff test we were ready to go.

Mutt and I wasted no time hiking out the dirt road leading to Hardtack Hill, an open area of forest once used as a log landing.

It was there, in a long low ditch, that I would find raspberry bushes a foot taller than myself growing in such great numbers that I could pick for days.

As I scuffed along the dirt road the dust seemed to hang in the humid air for a while before settling back to the surface.

When I looked behind me I could see a lingering dust cloud.

Mutt stopped along the way to sniff the remains of a paper-thin toad flattened by a passing car.

I used the end of a stick to etch RIP in large letters near the corpse.

I kicked at some stones as we continued down the road and Mutt chased after them.

She picked them up and dropped them in the tall grasses growing in the deep ditch along the road as if she was hiding them for later use.

Every time she emerged I would launch another to add to her stash.

It was nice to finally reach the vast patch of briar filled with raspberries. I worked the shaded edge of the patch. It flowed up a slope lined with outstretched branches of Birch.

It was nice to be in the cool edge of the forest but the berries were not as thick as they were out further in the full sun of the patch.

Mutt found a spot in the shade to lay down and pant as I picked away and filled three buckets to the brim.

I found a nice shady spot on an open face rock to sit and eat some of my spoils.

Each sweet berry sent a wave of happiness through my cheeks. With an outstretched hand I offered one to Mutt.

From the look on her face I could tell it was not of her taste.

She chomped on it in an unsure fashion for a minute or two before releasing it in a drooly sneeze.