Research is like raspberry picking

We have raspberries in our backyard: red, black, and purple,[1] including four varieties of reds.

They grow on canes: First year canes don't bear fruit; patience is required. Once fruited, old canes can be cut out to make room for next year's harvest.

Berries start green, turn white-yellow, then pink, then slowly become their final color. Pick them too early, and they are bitter, hard; too late, fermented (yum!) or bug-infested (yuck!).

Our purples are largest; blacks, smallest.

Some varieties (reds, purples) send out roots that sprout new canes. They are surprisingly good at seeking fertile soil.

More often than not, black raspberries spread when long first-year canes reach out like arching fishing poles, whose ends bend down to the ground where the tips send out tendrils to root. If you want to keep them from taking over a garden or a part of the yard, it's important to direct where the canes touch the ground so that the new plants stay in their rows. (These canes are like me, perhaps with a touch of ADHD, tempted at times to stray too far from my tasks.)

The process of raspberry picking could be an analogy for research:
From where I stand, I may pick every raspberry I can see, tempted to assume the work is done.

But move a few inches to one side, or stoop down, and more come into view that had been obscured.

So it is with research: Sometimes one feels one has exhausted a line of thinking; but if one finds a few new books or articles on the topic, or even on a tangentially related topic, or if one speaks to colleagues, one gains fresh perspective, and new, ripe insights come into view.

Sometimes, perspective is everything.

We have finished picking for the season (except for a red variety that fruits again in the fall). We have frozen most of the harvest for making jam and sauces later. Now comes the work of cutting out old canes, and of directing the black canes so they fall near their rows, to make next year's harvest more accessible.

NOTES:
[1] Our blacks: Bristol;
purples, Royalty;
reds: Souris, Latham, Boyne, and Caroline.

[2] Berries are mentioned in Shakespeare -
gooseberry
strawberry
mulberry
blackberry
bilberry
Dogberry
and berry
- but never raspberry, although blackberry resembles raspberry...

Images: Author photos.

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Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to explore how the Bible and religion influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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