Red Huckleberry

Yesterday afternoon Henry and I set off into the woods looking for huckleberries.  We'd seen some days ago on our usual trail along Thornton Creek, which runs past our apartments, but when we got back to the spot they were gone.   Either people, or birds, or hopefully not a bear had gotten to them.  The only rule of huckleberries is get them while you can.

So we started to tramp around, hunting.  Henry sang us his good luck song.  "Da da da da daaaaa...."  We moved slowly and looked carefully, naming the trees we went past as a way of making sure we were taking it all in.  "Big leaf maple, Douglas fir..."  Then a pit bull came crashing through the bushes, stopped ten feet in front of us and started barking at us.  I had Henry in the carrier, and my brain wanted to turn and get the hell out of there, but I knew that would just make him chase us.  The dog had his head down and his shoulders were twitching as he edged closer, still barking.  I yelled out "Is someone missing a dog?" and wondered how I was going to fight this thing.  Pocket knife or just kick him in the face?  Then I heard a guy.  The owner came running up with another pit bull, also not on a leash, and a big white dog, not on a leash, and a little rat-dog, on a leash.  "Sorry," he said, as all four of his dogs were barking at us now, "they're not used to  seeing a baby in a carrier."  Wow, interesting fact, dickhead.  Sorry to bring my baby out in public where he might disrupt the fragile sensibilities of your unhinged killing-machine.  Too bad there's no possible way to restrain your aggressive dog, other than a leash or course, which you clearly don't have access to, other than just the one.  I was seething.  As they went passed us he sheepishly asked, "are you having a nice walk?"  I said something nasty to him.  

After that I was a little wound up.  Henry didn't seem to be bothered, but I was walking too fast and not paying enough attention.  We startled a rat and he ran into a thicket.  The only berries we saw were devil's club, poisonous.  Then, after about a half and hour, when I was calmed down but ready to head home in defeat, I looked up and realized we were standing under a ten-foot tall huckleberry bush.  Or was it a tree?  I didn't realize they could be that tall.  We plucked every little red berry we could get our hands on, which apparently isn't the fastest way to harvest them.  You're supposed to rake or shake the branches and just let the berries fall off.  We know for next time.  Then we went home and ate them, another successful outing in the bag. 

Red Huckleberry

Vaccinium parvifolium

Family ericaceae (heath)

Red huckleberry grows along the West coast from Southeast Alaska down to San Diego, in acidic soils or from the stumps of dead trees.  Indians cultivated huckleberry patches and ate the berries both fresh and dried.  They also used the berries (which resemble salmon eggs) as fishing lures, and made medicinal tea from the leaves to treat diarrhea and allergic reactions.    

Red huckleberry also resembles red elderberry, which is poisonous.  The major differences in appearance are that elderberries occur in big clusters, while huckleberries occur individually, and elderberries have big, opposite leaves, while huckleberries have small, alternate leaves.

Red elderberry: 

POISON POISON POISON POISON


--Tim 8/12/11

Peas

Henry and I had a big garden day.  First we picked dried peas.  Peas are just about my favorite vegetable to grow, because they're fool-proof survivors, you can start them really early, during the most enthusiastic part of early spring, and they're delicious.  They also suck in nitrogen from the air and stuff it down into the soil to feed our future crops.  We ate all the fresh snow peas we could through the cool summer we've been having in the northwest (sorry everybody else, about your heat-wave), and now that the sun is finally out we're picking the dried pods to shell and put up in the pantry.

Taking Henry to the garden is my favorite thing.  He scoot-scoots around in the mulch and whines for raspberries and unilaterally decides to harvest an onion sometimes.  He winds up with dirt all over his face and sometimes his arms get a little pink and I always have to keep him from getting into the rhubarb leaves and it's usually the most joyful thing we do in any given week.  And afterwards he always sleeps well.

Also, thanks to our buddies Harry and Daniel, we came home with a heavy bagful of fresh potatoes.  This is my first real garden, and these guys are our first garden buddies, and I'm so thankful for both.  There's something about growing food that makes me want to share it with people, and it reminds me that we need to see all of our friends more.  If you're our friend, come over for dinner, will ya?

Peas
Pisum sativum
Family: Fabaceae


It's fun to eat foods that have been cultivated for thousands of years.  Sometimes I think about all of the people who probably ate peas at one time or another, from Abe Lincoln to Julius Ceasar. Some of us may be the subject of Shakespeare plays or time-travel buddy-comedies, but we all eat the same peas.  At least, we do if we were born in the last 5,000 years or so and have access to produce originating in Egypt or the near-east.
Anyway, I don't really need to say too much more about peas, but here's this, from  the WSU Extension Service:


In Norse mythology, Thor gave peas to humans as a punishment, not a gift. One version of the legend says that he sent flying dragons to use them to fill up and foul all of the wells on earth. The dragons were a little clumsy though, and some of the peas landed on fertile ground, giving the people a new vegetable. To calm and flatter the even angrier Thor, the mortals dedicated the vegetable to him and ate peas only on his day, Thursday.


Here there be monsters:

I found a few of these sweethearts, called pea moth larva, in my pods at shelling time, having each eaten through a pea or two.  The internet says that crop rotation and harvesting your crop early are the best way to foil this guy.  

--Tim 8/9/11

Himalayan Blackberries

Today I took Henry out to pick our first blackberries of the season.  They basically blanket the city of Seattle in an undifferentiated thicket of thorns and drive over a smorgasboard of our native berries, but what the heck, come late summer they explode with big black fruits.  They taste sweet when they get old and saggy, but now they're still young and tart, so we picked a pint in the bramble behind our apartment building and made a jar of jam from them.  Henry has scratches all over his shoulders from the thorns.  I put him in overalls to protect him, but it was hot so I let him wear a sleeveless shirt.  He hung off my left side in the baby-carrier, eating every third berry I plucked, and he wasn't shy about letting me know when a berry cane reached over and gave him a love-tap.  He condenses the phrase "Yowza Dad, you're doing it wrong!" into a simple "Ahhhghhh!"  Its a lot easier for me to understand, so I appreciate it.  Jordan wonders what the doctor will say about the scrapes at his checkup tomorrow.  I say little boys get scratches: it's what they do.

        

Himalayan Blackberry 

Rubus armeniacus 

Rosaceae family

Bred for fruit production in Armenia (and not central Asia as the common name implies), this invasive weed was introduced to the US in 1885.  It now runs feral in twenty-five states and a couple provinces.  It packs a one-two-three punch for survival.  One, it has sharp thorns to keep away predators, two, wide leaves to shade out competitors (Douglas Fir and Western White Pine here in the Puget Sound region, among others), and three it can reproduce both through seeds which the birds eat, and by driving one of its canes back into the soil and sending out runners from there.  

I've worked on crews trying to eliminate blackberries from watersheds by digging out their massive root balls, sheet mulching over and replanting, and it seems to me... get used to the blackberries.  It's a ton of work requiring a bunch of people to clear even a small area, then along comes a sparrow and plop! another blackberry bush.  And don't let those goat buffs tell you grazing is the answer.  The goats munch the stems down and then they grow back like a fertalized lawn.  Better to stop complaining about the blackberries and just eat em.   

--Tim 8/8/11