Black Huckleberry

I would like Henry even if he wasn’t my boy.  Everybody’s into slow things now, like slow food, slow money; Henry is a slow baby.  Which is perfect for me, because I’m a slow man.  Henry took an extra ten days to gestate.  It’s going to take me an hour just to write this blog.  No reason to hurry.

We just got back from camping.  Henry’s favorite camping game is to go up to a tree and touch it, then go over to another tree and touch that one.  He laughs if your run with him from one tree to another, but if you start at a run and then slow way down to a slug’s pace he goes bananas.  He keeps looking at that tree and cackling his head off until you finally touch it, and then he’s looking to the next one.  He takes life one tree at a time.

He’s not sure enough on his feet yet to walk from one tree to the next on his own.  Walking is another hurry he wasn’t in.  It’s like that Cat Stevens song, where he says if he didn’t have hands he wouldn’t have to work.  To Henry, walking is just more work.  I move really fast when I’m at work, to get everything done on time; it’s how you can tell I don’t care that much about it.  When I’m doing something important, like helping Henry pet the dog more gently, I takes my time.

Black Huckleberry
Vaccinium membranaceum
Family Ericaceae (Heather)


In some places in Washington State, black huckleberry (or thin-leaved huckleberry) can be the most common under story bush of the middle elevation.  That was definitely the case where we were this weekend, Tahklakh Lake in the Gifford-Pinchot National Forest, below Mt. Adams.  Every trail in the campground was cut through huckleberry bushes.  One reason could be fire ecology: black huckleberry regenerates fiercely after fires, and native people in a lot of areas burned the under story to encourage huckleberry growth and eliminate other plant competitors.  


Even at the start of autumn Henry and I were able to find our fill of the fat black berries to eat, and the leaves were just beginning to darken to a gorgeous plum color that will paint the entire forest like it’s covered in jam until the snows come.  

--Tim 9/26/11