Here I am, using my color vision to spot the ripest raspberries in the thicket. Darker ones are ready. I can distinguish fine grades of color.

Then, I use my specially designed opposable thumbs to pick the ripest raspberries. My fingers have been given the ability to sense, and calibrate their grip for, the finest gradations of pressure. This allows me to pull each berry off its core without squishing it. Most of the time.

The raspberries, for their part, have been specially designed to be picked and eaten by me. Every year, they produce a ridiculous bumper crop. “Pick us!” they groan. They have been given thorns, of course, but these are at best a halfhearted attempt to fight back. All I need to do is put on a long-sleeved shirt, and the prospect of a nasty scratch is no match for the motivation furnished by the berries’ taste.

The raspberry bushes are very good at surplus. They produce far more berries than I can realistically pick, and they hide them where I will never find them all.

They taste sweet-tart. They provide fiber and Vitamin C and I don’t know what all. They look so pretty paired with yogurt and oatmeal on a summer morning.

This morning while I was deep in the raspberry patch, my son picked up one of our chickens and at that moment she laid, the egg dropping from his arms to the ground. It didn’t break. Food was literally falling from the sky.