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Berries
By E. Bishop
What’s not to like about berries? Love this time of year beginning with the strawberry season, then cherries, then blueberries and blackberries. And, if you’re lucky, you may get some of those wild raspberries and mulberries before critters get them. There are so many health benefits to eating fresh fruits and vegetables; we all probably fall far short of doing that. Here is a reminder of some of the benefits of eating berries and in particular, the blueberry.
You want to improve your memory, improve fat burning, relieve constipation, improve heart health, preserve bone health, improve urinary tract health, improve blood sugar stability, support eye health and vision — eat blueberries! Seems like a miracle drug without needing a prescription. Freshly picked berries are certainly a tasty summer treat. You can simply wash them and eat or sprinkle as a garnish, bake them in pies, cake, cobblers or turn them into jams and preserves.
Piedmont North Carolina is an excellent area to grow blueberry bushes. I’ve tried doing so with little luck so far but I’m still working on them. To get it right, those bushes need acidic well-drained soil, loose and high in organic matter; six to eight hours full direct sun also a must. Plant multiple varieties to increase fruit yield. First two to three years will be minimal fruit but after five to eight years the yield should be great. The season in this area is mid June to August. Eager pickers have several places around to choose from. Of course, you can buy them in the grocery store or farmer’s markets but it’s nothing like picking your own.
This week, I had the good fortune to be able to pick my own again this year. To me, going early (7 am) to beat the heat, seeing the bushes so full of beautiful berries and listening to the birds sing while I picked was magic. Nothing like enjoying nature and spending time outdoors.
A great local place has plenty blueberries available – bring your own bucket – $15/gallon you pick; $25/gallon picked. For more information, call Harold Wood at 336-414-2971 or Sarah Wood 336-751-2826.
An easy delicious recipe follows for Blueberry Pound Cake taken from a dog-eared magazine of hometown recipes.
1 package butter-flavored cake mix
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
2 cups blueberries
Preheat oven 325 degrees. Lightly grease and flour a 10 inch tube pan. Combine cake mix, cream cheese, oil and eggs. Beat until smooth. Gently fold in berries. Spoon into prepared pan and bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Serves 12-16. Serve with whipped cream flavored with 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract.

Gratitude
By Felicia Browell
I’ve always found it easy to focus on what went wrong. My marriages, relationships with my kids and my parents, my financial struggles, and my struggles at times with my faith. My habit of looking at the negatives of life, it turned out, didn’t help fix any of it.
Certainly recognizing what is going wrong is good, and trying to get to a root cause, as long as the intent behind that recognition is to move toward a solution. But I’ve been guilty of wallowing, too. And I’ve watched friends and family wallow too. Honestly, I was tired of wallowing. Wallowing is exhausting, and it turns out, doesn’t help fix anything.
So I gave it up, and substituted gratitude.
Gratitude is nothing new to me. I was raised to say please and thank you, to lend a helping hand rather than stand by and watch other people do all the work. And I do, every chance I get. I don’t walk by when someone drops something at the grocery, I help pick it up. If I’m at an event and the planners need help setting up or tearing down, I try to join in. I’m part of the production team at my church. When I help out, I feel lighter, happier, and glad that I was there to help.
In one of my current classes, we had a homework assignment on gratitude. Turns out, there are a LOT of benefits to practicing a gratitude mindset. And there’s a decent amount of recent research on it, too. For example, did you know that people who feel gratitude sleep better? Quality sleep is closely related to better overall health, not to mention less depression and anxiety. Gratitude improves both physical and psychological health. Physically, grateful people experience fewer aches and pains, and psychologically, gratitude reduces depression and increases happiness.
I’ve found that I like being happy. And I’ve decided that being happy is a choice. I can choose to be happy with my new-used car. (Being happy about the car payment was a little harder.) This car has working air conditioning, a fair-sized cargo area, and gets decent gas mileage. It’s comfortable, easy to drive, and has a great safety rating. It’s one thing I’m grateful for. Others are sunrises and sunsets, birds that sing in the mornings, my mother, my daughters, and my new granddaughter. I have a roof over my head, and food to eat. I am happy, relatively healthy, and doing what God tasked me to do.
My mom is living with me now. She reads all of my writings with the Renegades team. I’m grateful that she’s still able to get around, and that her mind is still good. I like hearing her stories, and I’m happy she’s settling in pretty well in her part of the house. I’m hoping she’s learning about gratitude from me, as I continue to build the farm, and we work together to make the house more of a home.
So how can you feel more gratitude too? Keeping a gratitude journal is one way. You can use a small notebook to write down the things you are grateful for. You don’t need to do it every day, but that works best You could use notecards or pieces of paper on which you write down a gratitude tidbit and drop it into a special gratitude box. You can even just close your eyes and feel the gratitude for the good things that happened in your life today. Maybe you’re grateful for the people in your life who helped you in some way, for the positive impact you had on others, for the flowers blooming in your neighbor’s yard, for the cool sweetness of ice cream, for the smile and wave of greeting that someone sends your way in passing, even if you don’t know the person.
Prayers are another way to express gratitude. I say thank you to God for all He’s done for me, and for His provisions before I ask for anything. When it comes down to it, there are so many things to be grateful for – I’ve even found reasons to be grateful for the challenges I have. I often learn more from my struggles than I do from my easy successes.
You can express your gratitude any way you wish, but I sincerely hope that as you get more into a gratitude habit you too find the surprising happiness and joy waiting for you.

The Green Dress
By Linda H. Barnette
It’s strange how various things can cause us to recall things that happened long ago. This morning I happened to see a picture on Facebook of a group of high school girls modeling the dresses they had made in their Home Economics class.
Seeing that photo made me think of the dress I made in my Home Ec. class at the old Davie County High School many years ago. Mrs. June Reichle was our teacher, a young beginning teacher. I think she was surprised that I had no interest in her class, or more likely, she could not believe that I knew so little about cooking and sewing at age 17.
Anyway, Mother’s sister went to Catawba College and became a teacher, so my parents dreamed of hat for me. Growing up, I was expected to behave, make good grades, prepare for college and practice the piano because I was playing for church. Although Daddy had a big garden, and Mother cooked and canned, I was not asked to participate in those things. Mother was also an excellent seamstress and made all of our clothes, she did not encourage me to learn to sew.
But I digress. We worked for a long time on our dresses in class. Mine was a solid green shirtwaist, which turned out to be much too large!! I’m sure it would have been perfect if I could have gotten help from Mother, but I would not have dared to ask. As it happened, I had to attend a night class with adult women that Mrs. Reichle taught in order to finish my masterpiece. After I finished it, I brought it home and hung it up in my closet. I certainly never wore it, and imagine that my mother dumped it at some point!
In any case, I never sewed anything after that fiasco, and I never learned much about cooking either, but that’s another story.
Years later when I lived and taught in Fayetteville, I ran into Mr. and Mrs. Reichle during the countywide graduation practice in 1974. She still taught Home Economics, and he directed one of the high school bands.