A wild Maine blueberry bush has grown alongside my back porch. It is easily 5 feet high and looks like a bush whose berries would be large and fat, not small and juicy. Often people don’t believe me when I tell them it’s a Maine blueberry bush because it is anything but low to the ground.
It would be easy to pick enough berries for muffins or maybe some blueberry buckle from that bush. I wouldn’t even have to bend over. But I haven’t. We have plenty of other blueberry bushes ripe for picking. So why not save myself from the task of bending over
It’s the birds. Blue jays, cardinals, finches, woodpeckers, chickadees, and in the spring a family or two of bluebirds. In the early summer, when the berries first begin to form the birds begin to peck at the bush. I want to shoo them away. “Go to the feeder, you’re ruining dessert!” I want to yell, for I have stopped trying to pick berries from this bush, even though it would be easy. I finally realized I’ve been leaving it for the birds.
From season to season I watch the birds at the blueberry bush, thankful for this opportunity to see God’s love for the world in these small creatures. I watch as they seem to wait their turn at the birdfeeder, or smile at the very big cardinal who, at Christmastime, claimed the bush as his sole territory. I marvel that even in deepest winter they seem to find snacks among the bush’s tangled branches.
Watching the birds has given me far more joy than a batch or two of blueberry muffins ever would.