The August sun beats down on a barren hilltop on the coast of Maine. The crew move their way up the hill, sticking to rows marked out with string, leaning over the short bushes, drawing squat metal rakes across the plants, scooping up the small, plump berries, and depositing them into the waiting bucket. Blueberry raking season.

Wild lowbush blueberries are almost exclusively harvested in Downeast Maine and Atlantic Canada, thriving in the barrens left by the last ice age. Small and intensely flavorful, they are rarely found fresh outside of this specific place and time, but they are the berries preferred for pies and other baked goods.

Raking, like haying, needs to occur in the hottest time of year, and there is never any shade in a blueberry field. Sunburns, along with yellowjacket stings and poison ivy rashes, are occupational hazards. It is hard work, but a skilled raker, paid by the bucket harvested, can make some pretty good cash. My older brother once raked in the neighborhood of 228 five-gallon buckets in a single day. I never came close to that, though few did.

My first experience with blueberry raking was at Tom and Nancy Ford’s field in Hope, followed by many years working for Cliff Meservey’s crew. A pickup would swing by somewhere around 7 a.m., and the bed would fill up with young teenagers, driving us to whichever field we harvesting that day. This would not fly today.

Being part of a raking crew was an education in itself, and stories from 35 years ago are still being shared today. It was not a place those of delicate sensibilities, and the language alone was quite impressive – rakers almost had our own dialect, largely consisting of profanity. It was a great time for a young adolescent.

Now the raking is just the first step to that box of pristine berries you might pick up at a farmer’s market. The blueberry rake is an effficient way to get the fruit out of the field quickly, but the buckets of berries are full of leaves, stems, unripe berries.

When I was a kid, I remember gas powered field winnowers — you’d dump the berries into the top, and a powerful fan would blow the majority of the leaves and unripe berries out, and the slightly cleaner berries would be packed of to the processing plant.

Many years ago, when my brother – he of 228 buckets in a day fame — decided to get back into the berry business, he purchased a fancy new winnowing machine. This beast could, with proper manpower, turn a bucket of straight from the field berries, into a box of bright blue gems, without a leaf, stem, or unripe “green” in sight.

The key was that after the fan had blown away the majority of the detritus, the fruit would run down a conveyer belt. Here, I Love Lucy style, someone, or a couple someones, needed to pick out by hand any imperfections.

I thought raking was hard, but turning that bucket into something worthy for market is the real work. Should you ever wonder why those little berries can be pricey, think about all the steps from field to box. Or try picking a few quarts by hand….

After getting out of the berry business, my brother sold his winnower to Lincolnville’s Hannah Burke, AKA Blueberry Hannah.

Hannah grew up in a blueberry field on Appleton Ridge, and has developed quite the side hustle. Every July and August, her garage on Hope Road transforms into a little industrial center, with her small crew of local youth running the winnower, producing boxes of perfectly clean berries, ready to hit the freezer and provide blueberry pancakes, muffins, and pies all winter.

As she usually manages to wrangle my wife into helping manage her crew, I have had the opportunity to witness this operation in action. This group tends to be largely female, and the language is so much tamer than what I think of as the typical speech of blueberry harvesters. And they don’t arrive to work in the back of a pickup truck. Rolling with the changes.

I think Blueberry Hannah’s season may be wrapping up, but you can find her on Facebook. She also sells a variety of blueberry based products. And she’s a pretty cool lady.

Blueberry Wing Ding

Should reading about those sweet, antioxidant-rich berries leave you with a hankering for blueberry pancakes, the Lincolnville Improvement Association has you covered. This Saturday, August 12, is the annual Blueberry Wing Ding, held at the Lobster Pound Restaurant at Lincolnville Beach.

Pancakes, breakfast meats, coffee and juice, prepared and served by your friends and neighbors. Breakfast is served from 7-10 a.m. and costs $15, $10 for children under 8. There will also be a raffle, a white elephant table, and a bake sale. Blueberry Hannah will be providing the berries for the yummy pancakes!

Sweets, Savories, and Song

Diane O’Brien has more to say about the grange concert she wrote about last week:

A week from next Saturday, August 19, the Lincolnville Historical Society, 2117 Belfast Road, invites the community (and beyond) to an evening at Tranquility Grange. Katherine Rhoda, a well-known southern Maine singer and musician with a specialty playing vintage fretless instruments, will perform for us.

Don’t you wonder what a “fretless instrument” is? I know I do. With our historic Grange hall and its rare hand-painted stage curtain as the backdrop, Katherine will present songs that might have been sung in that very room 100 years ago.

The doors will open at 6 for an hour of nibbling from a smorgasbord of sweets and savories, lemonade, ice tea, and wine while chatting and admiring the old Grange. The program will begin at 7. Admission is $15; 12 and under $5; 4 and under and 90+ are free. Proceeds of the evening will be shared with the Grange and LHS.

And if you’d like to contribute a plate of goodies – finger food only – please send me (Diane) a text or email. [323-1237 or obrienragrugs@gmail.com] – it would be most appreciated.”

And a correction. Last week I referred to my mother as This Week in Lincolnville write “emeritus”. An alert reader pointed out that the correct Latin phrase would be “emerita” due to the gender rules of that dead language. And to my Latin teacher, the late Bill Curtis, mea culpa.

Frankenstein at the Lincolnville Library

Wednesday, August 9, at 6:30 p.m., the Lincolnville Community Library will welcome author William A. Chanler. Chanler wrote the horror/romance Son of Terror: Frankenstein Continued, a sequel to Mary Shelley’s masterwork, set in, of all places, Lincolnville Beach.

Chanler will also share stories about his time spent on his family’s property on 700 Acre Island, just off Islesboro. His novels will be available for purchase, and refreshments will be served.

Condolences

Sympathy to the family and friends of Lincolnville resident Leslie Albert Hillman.

And to the loved ones of Cynthia A. Lydgate.

OK, Lincolnville, have a wonderful week. Hopefully we have more sunny days than rain, but there have been some spectacular rainbows this summer! Look out for each other, be nice to you, and share any news you might have with me at ceobrien246@gmail.com.