Berries on the Fly

It's not been all drudgery and normalcy at our place...

Last weekend Stephen had a muzzle loader hunter safety course on Saturday. The rest of us could have gone to the Governor's Picnic that afternoon for some free grub and a chance to chill with Gov. Sarah Palin. But Tess was between sleepovers with the Saturday night one being a birthday party as well. So we opted to hit the mall and get a gift card from Abercrombie and Fitch instead.

On Sunday, after church, Stephen, Alicia, and I headed up to the Matanuska-Susitna Valley to hunt for berries. I'd seen lots during my field work the prior week. We did find several good spots, but the blueberries and cranberries weren't quite ready in abundance. We harvested some blueberries, crowberries, and cloudberries, but not enough to do much with. I'm planning to investigate the uses for crowberries. They're less sweet than blueberries, but look similar (as you can see in Alicia's basket) and there are a bajillion of them in the Alaska wilderness.

While moving from one berry picking area to another, we stopped under a bridge on the Little Susitna River so Stephen could do a little fly-fishing. Alicia May and I entertained ourselves by building sand/dirt castles in the shade under the bridge or throwing river rocks into the water. So many rocks, so little time...