'Tis the season to eat pie.

You remember Pie Season, don't you? Because I know none of you were thinking I was suddenly all super amped about any other kind of season, especially not the bad word season that starts with an "H".

Ew, no.

This Pie Season, I will say, is now fully underway. Seeing as I've now made a strawberry pie, blackberry pie and TAH FUCKING DAH the ever-famous Tomato Pesto Pie (with sausage because meat is a bonus.)

I made this yesterday and it's already gone.

Sadly, no cherry pie this year since I ran afoul of the law (in this case, Bubba is the law) and instead made a cobbler and ice cream which, while still good, weren't Pie Season Good, and so will not be repeated with future cherry harvests.

Sorry! I don't make the rules around here with regard to cherries, folks! I can't be held responsible for Bubba's soul-bending desire for cherry pie! I simply cannot!

But this isn't a post about how Bubba will someday leave me and move into the backyard to live full time with the cherry tree.

This is a post about our first ever celebratory Pie Season dinner of All Pie.

See, we've celebrated Pie Season in years past, as is obvious given the fact that we've named a season after Pie and are always banging on about it, but we've never had an official meal in its honor. And my understanding of holidays, which I'll admit is a little limited, is that there is a mandatory and representative meal in which observers partake while usually wearing occasion-appropriate attire, singing ridiculous songs, drinking to horizontality and perhaps blowing some stuff up.

OK, so you probably only blow things up on 4th of July, but I have seen a few Christmas tree fires and know of at least one occasion in which an Easter egg doubled as a stink bomb. So, there you go. Also, let's never speak these "H"word related terms again. Phew.

With these parameters in place, Pie Season is really only hitting on a few understood holiday requirements, but does in my view, fill the Holiday bill fairly squarely.

We do have the representative meal of All Pie. We do wear occasion-appropriate clothes (something you're not worried about ruining). We do drink to horizontality (Mary Elke anyone?).

We do not, however, blow shit up or sing songs. That's too much. And would remove us from our Pie Season duty of eating pie.

In their places, though, we have other responsibilities like picking the fruits for the pies. In this case, tomatoes and blackberries. And since I've already said so much as to incur gardener wraths about tomato harvests, let's talk about my weekend in which I pretended to be a farmer in my country girl blackberry pickin' outfit.

Why shouldn't an old Chevy's sombrero be part of my pickin' outfit?

Firstly, we made the trip up to my folks' who live in the beautiful county of Sonoma and wherein lies The Hedge that could eat a thousand tractors.

One tractor fatality of many.

As always, my mom made us lunch first and we bided our time until we had to don our weather inappropriate garb so that we could defend ourselves from The Hedge. Because The Hedge has tried to snatch me from my mom's grasp before and I will not have that happening again.

Also, I learned a powerful lesson about why flip-flops and shorts are a bad idea for picking berries and that lesson is still stinging on the palms of my hands from when I slippedfellcrashed into The Hedge and could only keep my face from plunging in after the rest of my body by grabbing the blackberry canes with my bare hands.

Yes. Ouch. If only I could listen when my mom tells me to do things like put on proper shoes and pants when going out to pick small squooshy berries off huge prickly bushes.

IF ONLY.

Anyway, I'm now on my second year of remembering proper berry pickin' clothes and, of that, I'm proud.

Gloves are not required because stained fingers are cool. Says me.

Of course, because it's always Supah Hot for these prickly long-sleeved adventures, I always sweat myself insane and then pseudo-collapse afterward, but it's worth it for the berries, the QT with the folks and For the Pie.

Do it for the pie, I say!

And so does Bubba.

Bubba does not play by the Long Sleeves Only rule. He's such a rebel.

This year we sweat an appropriate amount, although it was not nearly as hot as year's passed, and, with the help of Bubba and my dad, my mom and I got to slack off early and YAY with more berries than usual.

Fun times! Less work! No passing out in the prickers!

Also, let me mention my dad's new addition to the blackberry harvesting strategy: the blackberry cart.

I'll assume that "from the premises" means "my parents' house".

Now, it doesn't roll on the gravel and dirt driveway so hot, and we can't wheel it from one end of the hedge so well, but it does keep our precious harvest safe and sound during pickin's so that I don't have to retrace our pickin' steps to retrieve all of our full berry baskets.

Once my mom and I get going - we don't stop for nuthin'.

Why am I dropping all my Gs today? Sorry. I'll stop that.

Anyway, my dad is funny, apparently something of a thief and now we have this cart to hold our bounty while we work.

And what a bounty it was. All 11 pints of berries picked in about 30 minutes. Which is great considering how I wasn't going to make it another 10 minutes in my long sleeves and pants and proper shoes and socks (YECK.) in the 90 degree weather.

Thankfully, the bounty proved itself delicious. Also, sticky, messy and requiring of aluminum foil reinforcements during the baking process.

I choose to find this beautiful rather than aggravating and messy. Just go with it.

Elke identifies the prey.

And it was also totally appropriate for our first ever celebratory Pie Season meal of All Pie which included the unmentionable Tomato Pesto Pie.

I won't tell you how many tomatoes are in that pie, but it's a lot. For pie anyway.

Next year I'll just have to decide on a good Pie Appetizer for our All Pie Meal. You feel free to think up some ideas for me and I'll go pat my new Cuisinart on the back for blasting through two pie crusts and a very good dip recipe without even breaking a sweat.

Or whatever happens to food processors when they're overworked.