The Daily Bucket is a place to catch your casual observations of the natural world and turn them into a valuable resource. Whether it's the first flowers of spring or that odd bug in your basement, don't be afraid to toss your thoughts into the bucket. Check here for a more complete description.
Seattle.
The forest begins to bear fruit.
June 5, 2011. First Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis)
Salmonberries hang at picking height along the damp trails. I take a handful, surprised this year at their flavor. Their color too often belies a watery suggestion of sweetness, but today I am delighted by a tart burst of juice when I crush one against the roof of my mouth. I tease the flesh from the seeds with my tongue as I walk, savoring the first wild fruit of the season. Underfoot there are more seeds, clotted red in bird droppings. The robins eat many more than I do.
June 6, 2011. Incipient Red Huckeberry (Vaccinium parvifolium)
Next will come the Red Huckleberries, so many and yet so small that picking even a mouthful is a chore. I once tried to pick enough for jam but gave up after a half hour when there was only a scant half inch in the bottom of the bucket. Perhaps a quarter of a pound. We ate them with warm shortcake and whipped cream, just the two of us. They were delicious.
June 2, 2011. Unripe Thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus)
In July there will be Thimbleberries, the wild raspberry of the forest. I will fight the robins for them when they ripen.
May 28, 2011. Dewberry blossoms (Rubus ursinus)
Dewberry vines creep all over the forest floor, clambering over fallen logs and into the paths. They've blossomed madly every year that I've walked in the forest but have never produced more than a handful of berries, enough for one or two at a time over the course of a week or so. Their taste is like Sweet Tarts, only much much more.
May 28, 2011. Blackcap blossom (Rubus leucodermis)
I will not tell you where I found these, will not share them with anyone. Like their Dewberry cousins, they bear few fruit, but each one of those few is a prize to be savored, alone, back against a log under green summer light.
May 28, 2011. Evergreen Huckleberry blossoms (Vaccinium ovatum)
Unfortunately, I must share the Evergreen Huckleberries with too many people. There was a time when the forest was considered too dangerous for nice people to walk in. The nice people who walked in the forest during those huckleberry seasons nibbled as they wandered, but out of respect left most for the birds, who fatten on the rich fruit as they hunker down for winter or migration. Now, each week's ripened berries are stripped bare by weekend urban foragers. I try to be charitable, imagine that those who pick have no other source of fruit, but sometimes it is hard to be charitable.
June 1, 2007. Osoberry (Oemleria cerasiformis)
Osoberry. Indian Plum. Bird Cherry. The first deciduous January green. Flowers unfurling in February, pale against winter grey. I am greedy for their fragrance. Cat piss and skunk, the promise of light.
Now they ripen, yellow-pink and orange and violet orbs dangling from bright red stems. I will wait, knowing their taste, knowing their texture. Wait until each berry turns a deep purple. This is the taste of the forest: a gamy and almost unbearable bitterness, redolent of salmon, of bees, of sweet decay.
I take a single one each year in celebration.
Parts of the sections on Salmonberry, Thimbleberry and Osoberry were first published on June 19, 2009 on my rather neglected blog, "go-for-a-walk-in-the-park?". I hope this is OK.
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Your turn now. Where are you? Any berries ripening? What else, please?