Roses and thorns

The other day I went out to harvest bittersweet from along a back road here in West Marlborough (yes, I had permission from the landowner) so that I could weave a autumnal wreath for the door. I quickly realized that intimately intertwined with the bittersweet along the fencerow were multiflora rose vines, thick with both rose hips and prickers. My leather rose-pruning gauntlets would have been ideal for the situation -- had they actually been on my hands, instead of languishing uselessly in my gardening work basket back home. My hands got a little scraped up, my barn jacket has a few snags -- but I got a lovely and more-or-less circular wreath out of it!