A writer's 'blue' dream

By STEPHANIE PORTER-NICHOLS/Staff

Jim and Sarah Minick chased a dream. They experienced its hard and sweet reality. Now, a new dream yields promise, but the legacy of The Blueberry Years lives on.
With a family heritage rich in blueberry farming, Jim and Sarah wanted a simpler, less stressful life. The two teachers bought an old drafty farmhouse plus 90 acres of land in Floyd County and, in 1995, planted 1,000 blueberry bushes.
“We have chosen a drought year to plant our field of 1,000 blues, a spring season so dry it stunts the hay crop and kills the corn seed as it sits in the soil unable to sprout.”
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“I don’t want to tally, don’t want to know the weight of work hanging over us, but can’t help keeping a rough count: 150 in, 850 left; 300 in, 700 to go…. Slow and steady, I think, but we’ve been hard at it already for too long.”
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“The rabbits injured 100 of the 300 bushes already planted.”
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“Finally, in early June, with Sarah still teaching and the remaining plants just sitting in their sun-soaking pots, I call my parents for help.”
Sarah and Jim persevered.
The spring of 1997 brings waiting.
“For two months as the cool of spring turns into summer’s warmth, we walk to the field most every evening. We monitor these blooms, witness the white cups fall away after the bee’s last visit, and then watch the small globes grow and swell.”
Summer arrives.
“Then at last at the very end of June, we see a berry blue all the way to the stem, and another, and another.”
They taste blue.
“I hesitate, want to watch Sarah eat first, to savor the first bite after years of dreaming and sweating and watching. She says, no, we eat at the same time. I close my eyes and place one on my tongue. Then gently, I press it against the roof of my mouth. The skin breaks and all the hoped-for sweetness spread across tongue and cheeks and body.”
Minick Berry Farm opens. Pickers come. Friends are made. Experiences unfold.
“I want to believe that there is more than a life of the Fallen, that maybe we have the whole story wrong. That maybe every time I kneel to pick a simple blueberry, I am praying for gratitude, for grace, and this is enough. ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is among us,’ I say again, aloud. And each time I say it, it takes on new meaning, and new mystery.
Throughout the pages of The Blueberry Years: A Memoir of Farm and Family, the Minicks’ stories, dreams and fears come alive in their retelling.
The newly released book honors the berry domesticated in just the last century. Minick, in an interview the day before the book was released Aug. 31, said he tried to intertwine blueberry facts and even recipes among the stories.
“The blueberry is a great gift itself…. It’s a fruit that’s humble in origin that needs to be celebrated.”
Yet, as the author and Radford University instructor sits at his kitchen table, gently scratching a puppy’s head, the ticking of a clock filling silences as he reflects, it is the stories of people he returns to most often.
He remembered family who came to help with the farm.
He laughed about Joe, his next-door neighbor and strawberry farmer set in his non-organic ways. Jim called Joe a “great storyteller and humorist who went to a one-room school” with a legacy worth preserving. “I’d like to write a book about him,” Jim concluded with a firm nod.
He acknowledged that parts of The Blueberry Years were difficult to write, especially passages about people they loved and who have since died.
When he speaks of Floyd County, Jim appreciated the rural nature, but said there are “many people I cherished who lived or live there. I took away all those stories and memories.”
The desire to hold on to those stories and understand the nearly decade-long experience of developing and operating a blueberry farm prompted Jim to write the book. “I’ve always wanted to … try to capture those years, the struggles, great stories.”
Though the couple’s decision to sell the farm and move to Wythe County was multi-faceted, Jim’s desire to write played a significant role. “I wanted to write more. The berries had been a hoped-for path to that but instead became an impediment,” he acknowledged.
Jim has been a writer since sixth grade when he wrote a poem for his teacher, whom the students affectionately nicknamed “Hot Lips Haller.” He smiled and said, “She loved it.”
When Jim’s first book was published five years ago and he returned to his Pennsylvania hometown for a reading, she attended as did his fourth-grade teacher, his babysitter and his favorite college instructor. Such longevity with people, he said, comes in part from growing up in a small town.
His life philosophy may contribute as well. “Life is a gift. If we don’t recognize that daily, we don’t live well.”
For Jim, “writing is a gift. The more and better I write, the more awake I am to the beauty of the world.”
Knocking on the solid wood table, Jim says writer’s block hasn’t been a problem for him. Lack of time, he declared, is his obstacle.
He’s also experienced the challenges of the publishing industry.
Jim explained that it took him three years of hard searching to find an agent to represent his book. Then, he said, it took her 12 to 18 months to sell the book, trying to overcome publishers’ fears that the concept wouldn’t be marketable to the majority of readers -- older women. The success of Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Mineral) and Michael Pollan’s (In Defense of Food and Food Rules) books about food benefited Jim.
He believes people who care about their food will enjoy the book as will “people who dream and want to chase their dreams.”
Ultimately, Jim said, “The main storyline is how does a young couple chase their dreams.”
The couple hasn’t forsaken blueberries. He laughingly explained that most catalogues recommend six blueberry plants to feed an average family. On their new farm, Jim and Sarah planted 50. They eat the berries fresh off the bush and have smoothies most days. A few plants were still producing berries in late August. Jim easily spotted the beads of blue, popped a few in his mouth, encouraged his visitor to do the same, and handed a few off to one of his four blueberry-loving pooches.
Jim’s dream has changed, though. His tries to capture it in words, looking out at the window at mountain vistas. “To continue to write, to continue to live in a place like this and continue to listen to my wife play cello.”
Jim is writing when he can, working on a novel that he says is about “a folk healer and fire.” With the semester under way, his schedule is busy with teaching college students about literature and writing, trying to instill the knowledge that it is a process that requires patience and perseverance. Yet, the teacher in him relishes “the discovery when they do put together a string of words that’s really good.” He sees great talent in many students.
With The Blueberry Years released, Jim’s schedule is also becoming filled with readings from Floyd to Pennsylvania to Nashville. Though he’s not a fan of all the time on the road, he said, “I enjoy meeting readers, sharing my work.”
The work Jim put into this book is already winning accolades. The Southern Independent Booksellers named it as a summer pick. New York Times bestselling author Sharyn McCrumb describes it as “written with lyrical grace,” while author Ron Rash said, “In these pages we are given a wisdom that has, at its center, a quiet and abiding humility.”
When asked about the reviews, Jim simply said, “I am really honored.”

Upcoming readings of The Blueberry Years: A Memoir of Farm and Family
Sept. 11
Harvest Moon in Floyd, 10 a.m. until noon
Country Store in Floyd, 1 to 3 p.m.
Chapters Bookstore, Galax, 4 to 5 p.m.
Sept. 15
Rural Retreat Library at 7 p.m.
Other readings are being scheduled. To learn about other events and the author, visit www.jim-minick.com.