First Harvest

Garlic braids are hanging in the pantry, a big bowl of potatoes is ready to eat over the coming weeks, green beans are all picked for pickling, and I won't have to buy another onion for a good long while. It was a wonderful feeling this weekend to harvest some of the fruits of our labour. All summer long we've been picking some peas here and there, gathering a bowl of cherry tomatoes every couple of days, eating fresh lemon cucumbers with salt and pepper, thinking of many creative ways to cook zucchini and yellow crookneck squash, and eating all the lettuce we could ever want. After looking around over the past week while I was watering (this is how I spend a lot of my time nowadays), I could see it was time to haul some things in. We cleaned up the garden a little, weeded between the rows, pulled up the dead peas and planted some fall peas, and picked all the ripe green beans. Then it was time to work on the field.

I started with the garlic. This was a spring crop of garlic I planted from some free garlic that had begun to sprout at the local food Co-op back in April. For all those people who said you can only grow garlic in the fall, eat your hearts out! It's small garlic, true, but it's really tasty, and it didn't cost me a thing to plant. In a few weeks, I'll plant my fall garlic in that empty space in the field, and try to leave some room for another spring garlic crop as well.

I made garlic braids and hung them to dry in my pantry. It smells pretty delicious in there right now. I imagine it will keep any potential bug visitors away too.

The guys got to work on digging one patch of potatoes where the tops had died back. These too were a free sprouting produce find at Grower's Market. I took home a couple boxes of them, and planted part of the field in potatoes this spring.

We ended up with a good sized pile of red potatoes. There are still more growing in straw that have some seriously vigorous tops, so I know there will be more potatoes to come in the fall.

My son said he loved digging potatoes because it was like finding buried treasure! You can tell he's very proud of that big old spud he found.

My husband picked a good sized bowl of green beans that will become dilly beans in the next couple of days along with a bag from our  generous neighbors. It sounds like they have green beans coming out of their ears over there. That's a goal I wouldn't mind aiming for next year.

The birds and honeybees have been enjoying the sunflowers out in the garden too. It's a busy, happening place out there every day.

We just keep working away, right along with those busy bees. With Autumn approaching, there will be more harvesting, wildcrafting, gleaning, food preserving and planting to do. There are apples, pears and plums to pick in alleys around town, huckleberries to pick in the mountains, acorns to gather from our ancient oak trees, more veggies to harvest in the garden, and pumpkins to pick in October. After that it will be mushroom gathering season. It's a time of great abundance, and my favorite time of year with the cold, crisp mornings and golden, hazy afternoons. I love harvesting the bounty that the earth has to offer us.

Cast-Iron: Not Just Your Grandmother's Frying Pan!

How many of us are still cooking today with our grandmother's cast-iron skillet? We might think lovingly of grandma or great-grandma standing at the stove, cooking up some delicious morsels as only a Grannie can do. Ever pictured Grannie wielding her skillet as a weapon?  Perhaps she used it to smack an intruder or surly spouse over the head? There is a story in my husband's family of his grandmother, in a heated argument with her husband over making her leave California to return against her will to the cold, long winters in Montana, knocking him out cold with a cast iron frying pan and leaving with the kids. From what I hear, she was quite a character.

I was reminded of this family tale recently while reading through the June-July issue of Mary Jane's Farm, one of my absolute favorite magazines. I couldn't help laughing out loud when I came across page 92, filled with tales of cast-iron cookwear turned weapons. Ah, the dark humor of the modern day homesteading woman. I couldn't resist sharing them:

Jill Houk, a consulting chef for the Sara Lee corporation, calls her cast-iron skillet her "love tool". It belonged to her great-grandmother and dates back to the 1920's. When asked what she uses it for, she replied: "Searing, braising, baking, and as self-defense. That sucker is HEAVY and can knock a kitchen intruder out cold."

A 70-year old Illinois woman fought off four home invaders with her favorite cast-iron pan. One of them looked at her and said, "Lady, why did you do that?" Her reply? "I hit him again!"

Chef Anthony Bourdain says, "A thin-bottomed pan is useless for anything. A proper saute pan should cause serious head injury if brought down hard against someones skull. If you have any doubts about which will dent - the victim's head or your pan - then throw that pan right in the trash."

Another woman reports that her Nana slept with a cast-iron pan and salt next to the bed. She said she would blind an intruder with the salt and then hit him over the head with the frying pan.

A Seattle Times reporter got this reply from a store clerk while shopping for his first cast-iron pan: "My mom bought me one for my wedding 15 years ago. A cast-iron skillet and a rolling pin - two keys to a happy marriage! She said they'll keep a guy in line."

One blogger reports, "Hitting my dad in the head with a cast-iron frying pan was how my step-mom got him to stop drinking."

A big thank you to Mary Jane's farm for the ode to cast-iron and all the laughs it provided this farm girl!

So, I got to thinking about cast-iron, and thought I'd share some photos of my collection here. Not to make you jealous, but to give an idea of all the possibilities and versatility in the world of cast-iron cooking. Why is cast-iron so exciting you may wonder, aside from being handy as a kitchen weapon? The sturdiness (I'm pretty sure they last forever), the even heat, the lack of nasty things leached into your food like aluminum and Teflon, the versatility of cooking method (stovetop, oven or campfire), and the ease of cleaning are a few benefits I can list right off. If you come across any at a yard sale or thrift store, or have someone ask about gift ideas for you, get yourself some cast-iron cookwear. Here are a few examples of what is out there.

 Everyone is likely familiar with, or owns a basic cast-iron skillet. I have one regular one I use every day that lives on the stove top burner. This was given to me by my grandmother, and revolutionized my cooking experience. No aluminum leaching in the food, no Teflon flaking off, just even heat and easy cleaning ( just swish out while hot with a bristled brush and water. Yes, it comes clean that easily!) I also have another, deeper skillet that comes in handy for frying and making potato skillet dishes. I have been known to bake corn bread and breakfast popovers in it from time to time as well. This one, I believe, came from my husband's family. Maybe it was the infamous frying pan from the story.

Dutch ovens are another miracle of cast-iron cookwear. Here I have yet another family hand-me-down on the left, and a garage sale purchase on the right. The smaller one we use for baking and cooking in the kitchen, and the larger "spider" dutch oven (named for the three iron legs that stick out of the bottom to hold it up above the coals) we take camping. I have yet to launch into the world of dutch oven baking, but I have big plans.

Then I have my miniature skillets for melting butter and making single serving egg sandwiches. The tiny one comes in handy if I need to melt one or two tablespoons worth. The larger is for when I need to melt more. We don't have a microwave, so butter melting is as stove-top affair around here. I think these were acquired at some point at a local outdoor store that carries everything. It might have been Tri-State in Moscow, Idaho.

This is the most recent addition to my cast iron collection. I've been wanting to make waffles for some time now, but was feeling unsure about the Teflon-coated electric waffle makers. I heard there was a cast-iron model that sat directly on the burner, and when I came across one in Lehman's Non-Electric Catalogue, I knew I needed one. We had some delicious waffle breakfasts this winter. It's a bit messy this way, and you have to clean up the burner and stove top after you're done, but it's worth the trouble.

These muffin pans were given to me as a gift one year. They likely came from Lehman's as well, and they make great muffins. You can also make little mini-popovers in them.

Here are some fancier muffin tins. Both are from yard sales, and are likely well-loved. The corn-shaped one is for making traditional cornbread sticks, and the heart-shaped one makes great little muffins for tea and special occasions. They also look good hanging up from my old ladder turned kitchen hanging rack on the ceiling.

Here is a biscuit baking pan I got while I was in college at an outdoor store. It makes big, fluffy sourdough biscuits, and baked eggs. For those of you who have never had baked eggs, just grease a muffin pan, crack one egg in each cup, dash with salt and pepper, Worcestershire sauce and hot sauce, and sprinkle with cheese. Then bake it at 350 for about 15 minutes. They're delicious!

This griddle was another great yard sale find. It will fit over two stove burners for indoor cooking, and also works great over the campfire for hotcakes and bacon.

This cast-iron wok was another gift from a relative. I have to confess, I haven't used it as much as the others. I have limited wok experience in general, but my husband has made some good stir-fries in it.

Lastly, there is my GIANT cast iron skillet (note the regular sized skillet beside it for scale). This was a gift from the same relative who gave us the wok. You can cook up a lot of pancakes in this skillet. I imagine, for hitting intruders over the head, this would be the frying pan of choice, and really do the job. It would make your grandmother proud.

What We Have Here is a Watermelon!

Five, to be exact, and more coming on. I LOVE growing food!

Camping at Crane Prairie Reservoir

This time of year, when the weather in the Willamette Valley is stifling hot, it's nice to find a mountain lake to camp by with the promise of cool breezes and refreshing swims. We made plans to escape to one such place by the name of Hosmer lake for the weekend, and ended up at a beautiful spot on the shores of nearby Crane Prairie Reservoir with some adventures in between. Both lakes are in the vicinity of the Cascade Lakes Highway, a U.S. Forest Service Scenic Byway that runs along the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains from Bend to LaPine. In these dry pine forests with stunning views of Mt. Bachelor, the Three Sisters, and numerous buttes and peaks, mountain lakes are abundant. We spend a lot of time at Wickiup Reservoir in the late Spring, both car camping and canoe camping, and enjoying all the migratory birds and waterfowl.

On to our adventures in finding a campsite on the fly...After hearing about the crystal clear waters, grassy meadows and fish in Hosmer lake, we put that one on the calendar for a late summer camping trip. It sounded like a good canoe camping lake with limited car camping space, but our daughter broke her thumb last week on a beach excursion, and  couldn't go canoeing in a cast. We decided to just head out there and pick a lake. Our first destination was Little Cultus lake at the base of Cultus Peak. My husband had heard good things about the fishing there. While the lake was certainly beautiful, and no doubt contained fish, we found it too crowded for our tastes. Camping means a lot of different things to a lot of different folks, and if having your neighbors a few feet away on both sides suits you, this lake would be the place to go. To us, camping means not seeing your neighbors since they're close enough at home, so we moved along down the road.

The map showed a rough dirt road leading up to two lakes along the Pacific Crest Trail, Irish Lake and Taylor Lake. It was a rough road, indeed, but we made it up there slowly in our Subaru Forester (wishing all the while we had a truck.) We arrived at the lakes to find them gorgeous, lined with some fine campsites, and EXTREMELY mosquito ridden. It was a few degrees colder up there too, and windy. These lakes seemed like good candidates for a September campout where cold nights are prepared for with warm clothes and hot food and drink, and the mosquitoes have died off for the season. Feeling we had some adventure left in us for the day, we moved on again.

On our quest for a campsite, I found one of my favorite late-summer wildflowers, Pearly Everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea) growing in clumps all along the roadsides.

We decided that Lava Lake would be pretty crowded on such a busy camping weekend, Sparks Lake would be more fun with the canoe, and Wickiup Reservoir was looking pretty low for the year, so we chose Crane Prairie Reservoir as our camping destination. We had camped there in July a couple of years ago with a friend who knows the area well, and remembered it being a great spot. We drove around the south side of the lake shore along the north edge of Browns Mountain and found a jackpot of dirt roads leading off to a string of unimproved (AKA, free) campsites along the shore. To me, they seemed more appropriately spaced and each boasted its own secluded stretch of beach with panoramic views of Mt. Bachelor and the surrounding peaks. Even better, there were no mosquitoes around. We picked our favorite spot and set up camp.

The thing I love about these "unimproved" campsites on Forest Service land is how campers have improved them in their own creative ways. Many are hunters camps used in the fall for days at a time, or favorite spots for fisherman to return to. At this one we found a hewn log bench, some stump stools, a primitive table built between two trees with some plywood, and an open air privy. In campsites such as these, one can find all the comforts of home in the outdoors, and all this without campground fees, crowded conditions and noisy neighbors.

Now, we don't do much campground camping, so we go out into the woods not expecting amenities like a toilet. When we come across a rustic privy with a view, built out in the woods where we're camping, it's always a pleasant surprise.

With all the big open water and sky, the sunrises and sunsets are events to be noticed here. I remember watching a big lightning storm dance across the sky above the lake on our previous trip. It was a little intense for the kids with all the thunder claps, but a memorable nature experience nonetheless.

The shoreline was mostly pebbly, but there were a few sandy stretches scattered around. This one was edged with some nice meadow grasses and lodgepole pine forest that surrounds the lake. With views of the mountains across the lake, it made for a lovely, scenic spot to spend some time.

In many ways, camping and getting out in nature is all about finding balance. For myself, I know that nature is where I find balance and rejuvenation for my soul. For our family, we know that we need to find the balance between time spent working on the homestead, and time spent relaxing in the great outdoors. Too much work and not enough play makes for a tired, grumpy family. Believe it or not, too much camping can also be trying. We get so excited about it, and want to go so often, that sometimes we realize we have hardly been at home and need to get a little more rooted down. Just look at how restless and rootless we can be travelling around to find the right campsite. Among the many benefits we can gain from camping, finding balance is a great life lesson. Knowing when to travel along, and when to settle in. There is much to be learned out there in places like Crane Prairie.

Hang it Well and Hang it High: The Art and Importance of Hanging Your Food While Backpacking

Remember the things your dad taught you while you were growing up? Maybe he taught you how to build a table, fix a car, use a pocket knife, skin a deer, play a harmonica or make a mean pancake breakfast. Of all the skills passed down to me, the one I find myself doing exactly the way my dad showed me, is hanging the food bag in the backcountry. Every evening we were out on a backpacking trip, after dinner was eaten and the dishes were washed up, he would go out and hang our food bag for the night. I would watch him select the right tree with a good branch a little ways away from camp, and then cheer him on as he threw a rock or stick with the rope tied on to get it up over the branch. It was great fun.

For those who are used to cooking in their kitchen at home, and maybe the occasional campground, food hanging may not cross your mind while out on a backpacking trip. The lack of wild animals to contend with in our kitchens has made us soft. But, let me tell you, there are a lot of critters out there in the woods who would love nothing more than a tasty meal of people food. I bring this up not to plant a fear of forest creatures in anyone's mind (they're sneaky, they'll move in on your food at night without ever bothering you), but to make you aware of preserving your food and backpacking gear. I had one friend keep a bag of trailmix in his tent, where he was soon joined by a little squirrel friend who chewed his way through to get at those tantalizing treats. I once had a mongoose gnaw a hole in my pack to get at some dried fruit while backpacking on Maui. The story that really takes the cake, is when I was backpacking in the Tetons as a child, we were huddled in the tent during a rainstorm after hastily hanging the food up too low, and a bear came along and ate it. All we had left was some hot cocoa and pancake mix, and my parents had to ration out chocolate pancakes to two young children for the ten mile hike out. We thought it was great, with proper nutrition going out the window and all, but I'm sure my parents were more than a little worried about having hungry children to deal with.

Before you set off into the hills, you will need a food bag. Those nylon stuff sacks from outdoor gear stores work well for this. You can also use and old sleeping bag sack. Then get a good piece of rope that is lightweight but sturdy and about 30-40 feet long. It's a good policy to pack all the food in the food bag so it's in one place and put a few snacks in everyone's packs for the hike. If you wanted to be really organized, you could keep the rope in there too. After dinner, round up all those day snacks in everyone's packs along with toothpaste or any other strongly scented body products, and put them all in the food bag. Then comes the exciting part.

First, you have to select just the right branch. One that is high up enough and extends far enough out from the trunk of the tree is what you're looking for. The most important thing he told me to remember is "Ten feet out and ten feet up." Trees on the edges of rock outcroppings with branches hanging out over the precipice are a more daring, but secure choice.  Just make sure it isn't so high up that you can't throw something over the top of it. Which leads us to the next step...

Find a rock or stick that you can tie one end of the long rope to. Make sure you tie it on there securely, and throw it as high as you can to sail the rope right over the top of the branch. Don't get discouraged too easily. The rock may slip out of the rope a couple of times before you're done.  Pretend that it's some sort of rock throwing sport you're practicing.

Tie the other end of the rope to your food bag and hoist it up there by pulling the end you threw over the branch. If it's raining, enclose the food bag in a plastic garbage bag before tying to keep it dry. Once the bag is about ten feet up, tie the rope around a nearby tree. This should keep your food safe from bears, raccoons, and mice, and other hungry critters, save the occasional marauding chipmunk or squirrel bold enough to climb down the rope.

Some trails with particularly persistent forest creatures have bear wires at designated camping areas along the trail. These are wires strung up between two trees with some ropes and pulleys for your convenience. More extreme bear areas will have bear canisters for you to pack in and hang food in. While I have never used one of these, I hear they're useful. I still prefer to hang my food bag the old fashioned way. Just like my dad taught me, ten feet out and ten feet up.

Women Who Dig Rocks

Recently, my old friend Thena came through town to visit on an Oregon rock hounding/fossil hunting road trip with her daughter, Raine who has big plans to become a Paleontologist. Being the rock collector that I am (I can't help it! They just come home with me everywhere I go!), I was very intrigued by their trip. Armed with their rock hammers, pick, shovel and a book called Gem Trails of Oregon by Garrett Romaine, they set off for adventure.

Their journey started at Mt. Adams where they met us to pick huckleberries. What better way to start off on adventures than with a good breakfast of huckleberry pancakes with friends? From here they drove through Portland to a site called Cedar Butte in the Tillamook State Forest to find black agite crystals. Here, they had a little too much adventure with a flat tire in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, Thena is a no-nonsense woman who can change a tire, which she did, and got them back on their way with their haul of black crystal points.

The next morning, they caught a low tide out at Otter Rock on the Oregon Coast near Lincoln City. Here they found seashell fossils, agates, a few crystallized snail shells, and a large, dead sea lion (they didn't bring this home). They also found some good clam chowder.

After a stop-over at our house to do some laundry and have some down-home food at Papa's Soulfood Kitchen, they headed up the McKenzie River to a site called Gold Hill to dig quartz crystals. This location sounded a little questionable in their guide book due to rough road and issues around active mine claims, but quartz crystals were just too good to pass up, so they headed up into the hills. As they arrived at the place the book said to go, they saw a family pulling in with picks and shovels, so they quickly made friends and teamed up. This family lived in the small, nearby town of Vida, and said they came up there to dig frequently. They found a few holes others had started alongside the dirt road, and started digging away. Here, once again, they had a little more adventure than they bargained for when a forest ranger pulled up and said they were trespassing on an active mining claim and the penalty was a 1500 dollar fine! The local family talked the ranger out of it with only a warning, but he said they had a lot of trouble there recently with some unsavory folks hanging out, taking loads of crystals and even beating up the mine owner when she came out to work her claim. My friend considered herself very lucky to have found this family, so they dug up crystals the rest of the day, shared a picnic and a lot of relief over narrowly avoiding a scrape with the law.

For the next leg of their journey, they headed out to Eastern Oregon where they visited the painted hills, the Grant County Historical Museum, the Oregon Paleo Lands Institute in Fossil, and the John Day Fossil Beds. Here, Raine met the head Paleontologist who happily gave her an autograph and shared some insights on her chosen career. They spent their last night camping out on the Ochoco Reservoir watching the Perseid meteor shower flash across the sky.

The next day they added a little hot spring stop to their itinerary and spent the morning at Cougar hotsprings soaking in the warm pools. They were talking to a woman about their crystal finds, and she told them there were crystals right here, and you only needed to dig in the muddy bottom of the pools with your toes. Sure enough, they found a few quartz crystals. As the day heated up, they hiked back down to a cove with a waterfall on the reservoir for some cold water swimming to cool off. Here they met another family with the same idea, and splashed the afternoon away with their new friends.

They came back to my house on their way home to regroup and clean up their crystals. After some scrubbing with an old toothbrush, we got their rocks all clean and shiny. I don't know about you, but I've never seen that many crystals at once, except maybe at a rock shop, or the crystal cookie cave at the Waldorf School. It was an impressive sight to behold.

They headed back home with a car full of fossils, crystals, agates, huckleberries, some really good artisan cheese of Oregon, and memories of great adventures. I thought it was a great example of going with your child's interests and planning a do-it-yourself trip around it. Who needs Disneyland when you can dig up crystals, meet a Paleontologist, find fossils on the beach, have a near run-in with the law, and camp out under a meteor shower? I know which vacation I'd pick, hands down. Memories of Disneyland fade into obscurity, but I'll bet Raine will be telling the story of this road trip to her grandchildren someday. Heck, I didn't even go on this trip, but I know I'll be telling it to mine!

Thena's advice on having a really fun rock hunting road trip with your child:  "I didn't try to force my plan on the situation, I went with the flow of the day, and made sure to take time to do things Raine wanted (I.e. swimming as much as possible)."

There's Huckleberries in Them Thar Hills!

For the last seven years, our family has travelled to Mt. Adams to pick huckleberries. We make the drive up the Columbia River Gorge, cross the river into Washington, and head up through the little town of Trout Lake to the dry forests of the eastern Cascade Mountains. This has become a popular area to pick over the years, and at first sight of all the cars pulled off along the main forest service road with a frenzy of folks hunting around with buckets in the bushes, one might think gold was struck here! We like to travel farther back onto gravel side roads to some of our favorite spots away from the berry picking crowds. I try to make frozen huckleberries somewhat of a staple in our winter diet, so we do several big picking trips every year to stock up. We pick in the mountains closer to home in late September, but we also keep returning to pick in the Mt. Adams area in early to mid-August because it is a beautiful place, and because this is where my father, my grandparents, and my great grandparents all picked huckleberries over the years. In fact, this area has a long, long history of huckleberry picking.

Here's a little huckleberry picking history from the Gifford Pinchot National Forest Website: 

"For almost 10,000 years, Native people have been traveling to what we now know as Indian Heaven Wilderness. Archaeological evidence and historic records tell us the area provided a wealth of resources for Northwest Tribes. The Sawtooth Berry Field in the northern part of Indian Heaven Wilderness is world renown for its wealth of huckleberries. The area was burned in the late 1890's and again in the Great Fires of 1902. The fields were subsequently maintained by later fires, which may be attributed to Native Americans whose berry-drying fires would escape. From 1902 to the mid-1920's, the area served as a famous summer gathering place for Northwest Tribes. Much festivity, trading, and ritual surrounded the annual huckleberry feast. The tribes would pick and dry huckleberries, race horses, play games, make baskets, dry meat, tan hides, and fish in many lakes. The local tribes included the Yakima, Klickitat, Wishram, Wasco, Cascade, and Umatilla. Tribes from as far away as Montana and Wyoming also participated.

A council in 1932 between the Yakima Nation and the Forest Service resulted in a handshake agreement, thereby designating part of the Sawtooth Berry Fields (east of Road 24) as an area of exclusive use to the local Indian peoples.

The annual huckleberry harvest is still an important part of Native American tradition."

I really enjoy folklore and storytelling, so I thought I would share this traditional Yakima Creation Legend about huckleberries that I came across on the USFS website:

"Long ago, this world was inhabited only by animals. The animals could talk and understand each other, and they were just like we are today. One day the Creator called everyone together and said, "There are new people coming to live on this earth. You must make room for them by selecting new names and identities.You have the choice of what you want to be in this new world, and I will help you."

The animals all declared what they wanted to be in the new world. The Creator asked each one to perform certain feats in order to qualify for their new identity. If an animal failed to perform the feat he had to choose something else for which he was better qualified.

Coyote, as usual, monopolized all the best choices, but each time he could not perform the feat. First, he wanted to be the eagle, but he was unable to fly high in the sky, and did not have the keen eyesight the eagle must have. Next, he wanted to be the salmon, but he could not swim well enough. At last, the only position he could qualify for was the plain old Coyote, which he is today.

Every time an animal qualified for what he wanted to be, the Creator took part of his body and placed in the new creature. For this reason, the Indian people respect everything that has life, be it plant, animal, or human, because they are all part of the Creator.

When the Creator was finished with his work, he looked and said that he did not have any berries in the mountains. The only part of his body that was left were his eyes. So, he took his eyes and put them into the ground in the mountains. The veins in his eyes bled into the earth and became the roots. The roots became the plant, and the berries sprouted and became the huckleberries."

I'm pretty serious about huckleberry picking, and I've come by it honestly through the generations of huckleberry pickers in my family, but we still try to make the trip fun for the kids. They're still pickers in training. They will pick with enthusiasm for only so long, before they're ready to run off and play in the woods. I strive to strike a balance between my ideals of raising a couple of hard-working country kids, with the great importance I place upon making life enjoyable. Therefore, I don't push them to keep picking the way I do myself. I want them to like huckleberry picking, after all. This is why selecting a fun campsite is helpful.

In past years we have gone for very un-glamorous camping in dusty spots up in the woods where we could pick right around camp. We would come home so dirty, it would take days to clean up all our gear. This year we sought a little more balance between good camping and picking, so we found a campsite in the woods by a little creek at the end of a dirt road. We had to move a log out of the road to get through, but this campsite was well worth it. The kids had the creek to play in and we had some peace and quiet from all the pickers down on the main road. We had to walk a little ways to pick, but we didn't mind.

A large tree that had fallen across the creek was quickly turned into a bridge by sawing off the limbs on top. That bridge was looking pretty well-worn before the weekend was through. The kids spent a lot of time running across to build frog habitats on the sandy shore.

                                                                                     

Our dogs, we soon discovered, were just a couple of huckleberry hounds. Moonshine and Applejack figured out there was good food on those bushes, and started eating all the berries they could pick with their little snouts. They had so much fun eating berries, running around, and swimming with us, that they tuckered themselves out and slept well on the forest floor.

No huckleberry campout would be complete without fresh huckleberry pancakes in the morning. We brought the gluten-free Pamela's mix for our son, and our friend brought some tasty instant mix with buttermilk. We feasted on a good, hearty breakfast every morning, tasting the delicious fruits of our labours.

Huckleberries are one of the most delightful fruits I can think of. They're tart and sweet, and juicy. They're good frozen on oatmeal, cereal, in pancakes and especially in pies. If you have never tasted huckleberry pie, make it a goal in life. Not only are they extremely tasty, but I would venture to say that these are the most beautiful fruit I have laid eyes upon. After a day of picking, I can see them hanging on the bushes every time I close my eyes, like dark purple, glistening jewels. I think the image gets imprinted on the inside of my eyelids somehow. It must come from some deep-rooted food gathering instincts passed along through the generations. I'm hoping some of this will rub off on my children as well, so we can all go huckleberry picking together when I'm old and gray. I'm sure I can always entice them with huckleberry pie. 

Blueberry Bliss

                                                                                     

Our family loves blueberries. Every summer, when we find out they're ripe at the farms, we go u-picking as often as we can, and fill up our chest freezer for the winter.  We eat them frozen on cold cereal, oatmeal, in pancakes, in muffins, drizzled in raw cream, in smoothies, and just plain by themselves. Aside from wild huckleberries, they're one of my favorite fruits, and so easy to harvest!

We have a couple of favorite organic u-pick farms that we like to go and visit. The McKenzie River Farm has been our spot for the last few years, but now that we moved out of town in the opposite direction, we just made one special day trip out there this year. The blueberry bushes on this bio-dynamic farm are so tall they're like trees, and you can pick in their cool shade on a hot day.

I always enjoy seeing their cobb farm building when I'm there. It reminds me of an enchanted Hobbit house, with all the little round windows and curved shape. Inside they sell delicious homemade blueberry popsicles that are a good treat for tired kids at the end of a few hours picking. They also sell their raw butter here, which is delicious, and honey, dried blueberries, and organic veggies.

My kids love visiting all the farm animals there. They have chickens, ducks, cows, and pigs that love visits from kids, and a fun rope swing on a big old tree. It's a full farm experience, well worth the trip.

We were also happy to discover an organic blueberry farm out our way this year, that our friend, Taryn of Wooly Moss Roots told us about. It's about halfway in between for us to get together, so we can meet there to pick! The berries are so abundant, sweet and juicy out there that we keep going out there to pick in the evenings. The farmer's going to have a hard time getting rid of us!

Blueberry picking bliss

Sometimes, we can get a little silly when we're out there munching on all those berries.

 Something about having all those berries gives me a sense of wealth beyond measure. They're like little blue jewels. It feels good to start filling the freezer with them for the winter. When it's cold, and nothing is growing outside, we'll have berries for our breakfast. As we gather the Summer's abundance, and move with the wheel of the year, I feel prepared to welcome the seasons to come.