Fall 2013 Begins!!! Berries!!!

First of all, a tangential message to Photobucket:  Change SUCKS.  You should have left a good thing alone. Back when things worked just fine was a good time to stop tinkering and modifying.  Having to paste photos into Blogger with URLs messes with fonts, alignment, word sizes, and margins.  Sorry for using this post for this rant but, hey, the truth is what it is, and you've had it coming for a while. Anyway...

 Not long after returning home to Russian Mission, we were told that it had been a great berry year.  Well, say no more, said us. :)  Our supply of jam we made last summer in Idaho was running low anyway, as if we needed an excuse.  Last fall Warren really was a little too young to do many of our normal activities outside, but this year he is more than capable of joining us, and Sarah and I more than welcome the opportunity to get back out and experience all the things we love about living where we do.  Berry picking turned up first on the 2013 list.  Bring on the pics:

First up was a trip up the hill behind the house to nab some wild currants (my personal favorite jam, closely edging blackberry).  Note to self: When hiking on damp days, don't carry your phone in your pocket and then try to take anything other then semi-blurry pictures.

Jackpot!

Mmmmm....nom nom nom..

Wasn't long and we had a good batch of currants, and turned our attention elsewhere.  Headed 'out of town' a few days in a row for some blueberries out on the tundra around lake Nonvatchuk.

Headin' down the slough with mama at the helm...

The words say it all:

 Pickin' and grinnin'....

W's first experience with a head net...didn't want any parts of it...

Quality time with mom...

Ada photobombing...hah! :D

A good mix in one picture...blueberries, low-bush cranberries, and crowberries (black ones). Crowberries are kind of tasteless and are mostly used for filler, but not when the good stuff is plentiful....

Wild Rose Hips (great source of Vitamin C - but have fibers that need to be removed before eating or they can irritate your GI tract/stomach):

 Cloudberries!!!!  YUM!  Think cooked apples...these were a little overripe, but still GREAT!

That spriggy stuff at left and draped around the cloudberry plant above is tundra tea, and we gathered some of that too.  Below is a shot of one round's spoils, tundra tea in the middle.  How long is one round?  Until W decides for us that the bugs are too bad to stay anymore.  Then it's back out later, or tomorrow, depending on the day....

Gotta try a batch of tea before drying it...

Add some boiling water and press after steeping...YUM.

The longer the brew, the deeper the orange color.  But the catch is there is a toxin in the plant (Labrador tea) which can be trouble at high levels, so even though darker orange means more flavor the 'lighter' yellow color, the better for safety's sake.

Now that we have a bunch of berries in the freezer for cereal and oatmeal, a new batch of jam jarred and ready, and enough tea stashed for a while, the gathering is almost over.  September is coming, and the time for hunting is just about here...