One of my granddaughters has a Blackberry. As far as I’m able to tell, she uses it to have a life.

It is always with her, never farther away than a pocket in whatever outfit she’s picked for the day (and we won’t even talk about that), and under her pillow at night. It is never turned off, and she makes sure it is always fully charged.

She “talks” to her friends every waking hour, and in between text chats, she listens to music. Well, she calls it music; I, her dinosaur grandmother, call it noise, except when she hits the country western button (or whatever one does on a Blackberry to choose songs), then we both listen. Lucky for me, we both love country; it’s at least one thing we agree on.

I have a cell phone, as has John, mostly used to notify each other of changes of plan when we’re moving about separately. But I now realize that, compared to my granddaughter’s Blackberry, my cell phone falls sadly short.

It can’t, for example, hook me up with my e-mail when I’m away from my computer, or even allow me to send a text message to someone from my phone. Not that I’ve ever thought of doing that before, and I still am not sure why I would, but I somehow suddenly feel “out of it.”

I also have a digital camera, very up to date, and I use it a lot. But if I had a Blackberry, I wouldn’t even need the camera because I could do what she does, snap a photo of whatever and zap it off to a friend, who could view it on her phone and reply, all in the time it now takes me to focus my digital camera. She took a great shot of my two tortoises unexpectedly doing a very tortoisey thing, and in the space of two minutes had hilarious replies from at least three of her friends. Awesome, but I just keep wondering, “Why?”

From chats I’ve had with both moms and other grandmothers, she’s not unusual.

In fact, cell phones, Blackberries, iPods, and who knows what other names the gadgets have, are now ubiquitous.

While teenagers in particular seem addicted to their use, I’ve been around more than a few adults who wouldn’t consider for a minute being without their cell phones and, unfortunately, a few who are downright obnoxious with their cell phone abuse. If I remember correctly, even President Obama had some issues over his Blackberry addiction.

So, yes, I feel a bit out of date and am considering whether or not to upgrade my life with a Blackberry, but right now other blackberries are demanding my attention, blackberries I’ll get far more pleasure from than from a gadget that can eat up time to no purpose like nothing else I’ve seen. I’m going out right now to pick my favorite kind of blackberry, the kind that grows on thorny bushes on the hillside behind our house.

I’m not taking my cell phone with me.

RECIPES

Blackberry jelly is always my first choice for all the blackberries we can now pick, followed by pie or cobbler, and if we harvest enough, homemade blackberry syrup. But I have a recipe, now about 100 years old, for old-fashioned blackberry dumplings, and it’s a must for at least one night’s dessert when the berries are ripe. This is inherited from my loving but formidable red-haired, fiery tempered great-grandmother Nettie, who often made these for “the kids.”

BLACKBERRY DUMPLINGS

1 qt. freshly picked blackberries

1 cup + 1 T. sugar (see instructions)

¾ t. salt, divide (see instructions)

½ t. lemon juice

1½ cups flour

1½ t. baking powder

¼ t. nutmeg

2/3 cup milk

In a square baking pan (a dish won’t work because you’re going to be cooking in this), mix together the blackberries, 1 cup sugar, ¼ t. of the salt and lemon juice. Bring mixture to a boil, reduce heat and simmer while preparing the dumplings.

Sift flour, remaining ½ t. salt, baking powder, remaining 1 T. sugar and nutmeg into a bowl. Add milk, stir until ingredients are just mixed. Drop by teaspoons onto blackberry mixture in pan, cover tightly and cook for 15 min., without removing cover.

Remove from heat, remove cover; allow dumplings to sit for about 5 min. before serving. Serve hot, with a dollop of ice cream or whipped cream. Serves 4.

And from a great old cookbook called “The Intermediate Eater’s Seattle Cookbook,” here’s another somewhat unusual but delicious use for berries; blackberries are an outstanding treat used this way, but raspberries or strawberries are also delicious. I have no idea who “Teddy” is, by the way.

TEDDY’S TARTS

8 cooked tart shells (buy the frozen ones and bake them, or make your own)

3 pints ripe blackberries

1/3 cup fine granulated sugar

Brandy

1 cup red currant jelly (I like to use my homemade blackberry jelly)

Whipping cream

Toss the blackberries in a bowl with the sugar and 2 T. brandy. Let sit.

In a small saucepan, combine the jelly with 2 T. more of the brandy. When the jelly has melted, use the mixture to paint the insides of the tart shells.

Whip cream with sugar and brandy, to taste. Fill the tart shells with berries and top with the whipped cream. Serve. Makes 8 tarts.

BLACKBERRY BARS

1 cup flour

¾ cup firmly packed brown sugar

¼ cup butter

½ cup sour cream

1 egg, beaten

¾ t. baking soda

¼ t. salt

1 t. ground cinnamon

½ t. vanilla

1 cup fresh ripe blackberries

Sifted powdered sugar

Combine flour and brown sugar. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse corn meal. Press 1 1/3 cups of the mixture into the bottom of an ungreased 8-inch square pan.

Combine the remaining crumb mixture, sour cream, egg, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and vanilla; blending well. Gently stir in the blackberries. Spoon this mixture over the crust in the pan, spreading evenly. Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for 35 min. Allow to cool then cut into 3×2½ inch bars. Sprinkle bars with powdered sugar. Makes one dozen bars.