Lee seems to have inherited my love of berry picking. It's such an enjoyable activity - you're outdoors, it's repetitive and yet satisfying, you can converse with your companions, and in the end you have something sweet.
I think Lee has picked every type of berry I have except cloud berries, which I picked long ago above the Arctic Circle in Norway (but as they say, that's another story). But she's picked strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and now huckleberries.
It's a bit of an odd thing, the huckleberries. Last year, my nephew Cas (who's lives in California, I might add) started eating these little black berries that were growing along the waterfront right in front of our house. I had noticed them, but didn't know what they were, and definitely did not assume they were edible. Oh yes, his mom said, those are huckleberries. What did she know? After all, I've been coming here my entire life. But, you see, our island used to have what's politely known as a "deer problem," the result of which was little plant life below six feet off the ground. Since this has been dealt with (picture guys in wheelchairs shooting bow and arrow, if you want to know), we suddenly have undergrowth returning on the island. Thus the return of the huckleberries.
This year, there are loads and loads of them. We picked quarts between our lot here and the lot at the community beach. They're pretty good - a bit seedy and more tart than a blueberry, but tasty none the less.
Lee has spent hours and hours picking huckleberries. It's a bit of a hunt for them, nothing like the high-bush blueberries you find at pick-your-own farms, where you can fill a quart in ten minutes. But she has really enjoyed it.
"Mommy," she said at dinnertime today, "I had a huckleberry day."
Yes, I thought, I like the ring of that. A huckleberry day.
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