Dear Friends and Gentle Hearts
Saskatoon a'Picking
(words and music by Norman G. Walker - 2002 © SOCAN)
Well I start my day on the berry trail
Off I go a hikin’
With a belt and a pail and a long sleeve shirt
And a canteen for a drinkin’.
The prickly pear flowers in bloom
Goldenrod a-blazin’
Black-eyed Susan, gaillardia too
Coneflowers are amazing.
Chorus:
Down in the coulees, out in the hills
Deep in the bushes with the bergamot smells
I’ll comb these trees ‘til my bucket is filled
Saskatoon a-pickin’.
Well, the red-tailed hawk with a soar and a screech
Warblers are a-singin’,
I raise my head to the meadowlark call
Magpies are a-wingin’.
Chickadee chicks and the hummingbird hums
Woodpecker is a-peckin’
With a move in the bushes and the smell of a skunk
I think I’ll keep a-trekin’. … Chorus
I scout the bushes for a purple clue,
The berry that’s fit for eatin’
When you’re on the trail of the saskatoon
You’re lookin’ for the sweet ones.
At the edge of an aspen poplar bluff
The berries bunched or single
I pick and I munch for an hour or two
My hair and the bugs a-mingle. … Chorus
At last the job of pickin’ is done
I’ve got all I can carry
It’s back to the truck and the dirt road home
To freeze or can the berries.
Now when I die don’t bury me deep
Where all the other folks lay
Just spread my ashes in a saskatoon patch
Where the flowers, the birds and the bugs play. … Chorus 2x
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