We’d pick for awhile, filling shallow boxes with ripe berries. Every once in a while a supervisor would come by and do a “row check”–reviewing the bushes we had picked, making sure that we weren’t gathering only the “easy pickin’s”, and were getting the berries that were more difficult to reach. See, we were paid by volume, so it was tempting to breeze through the surface berries and not do a thorough picking.

Nowadays, among my friends (who also picked raspberries as kids), when we are working on projects around the house and garden, every once in awhile we’ll call for a “row check!” As adults, a “row check” is not so much about accountability but is mostly a chance to linger and admire the progress we’ve made. But calling “row check” still evokes a sense of responsibility and accomplishment.

Raspberries! So good.