Ok, Joshua and I are officially in the throes of a blackberry-induced coma! A couple weeks ago Joshua's nature preschool took the kids on a nature walk and we picked blackberries on the way back. The kids loved it, though I found out that poison oak (or was it ivy? I still need to learn this!) had infiltrated the bushes and had to be avoided. Ever since then, we've taken this as permission to pick away. Last week we walked down to the river with a few friends and Joshua ran up to me with blackberries in hand and gave me one as he thrust the other in his mouth and ran off. Pickings were slim there in the wooded, shady area, but he was tickled to feel like a pro - and I was tickled to see him look like a native, just picking them all on his own.
Well, today was a different story! I'd read about a lake over in the HP business area so we set off with the stroller and wandered over. In several areas we passed blackberry bushes just bursting with clusters of the shiny black berries. At first I thought that the path we took wasn't very popular, but then I realized that we're approaching the peak of blackberry season. These were beautiful berries, and bountiful as well. Joshua and I spent 20 minutes just plucking fat, tender, sweet blackberries and popping them in our mouths. Yum!
Then we wondered over to the lake and found a group of about 40 ducks resting right by the sidewalk. Joshua and I have been taking several nature walks lately, so he's getting really good at understanding that the quieter we are, the more critters we can spot. So he held my hand and we slowly walked along the path, right next to the ducks! Several stood up and shook their feathers out at us, but many remained sitting and lazily watched us walk by. We were giddy as we walked off, feeling pretty lucky that we'd been able to given permission to creep by. Then as we peeked back, we saw that the birds had continued watching us - and were starting to stand up and slowly follow after us! They must be used to friendly handfuls of crackers and crumbs, and feeling a little cheated that they'd allowed us to walk by but had not gotten any treats for it in return! It became pretty comical as we kept looking back and seeing this horde of ducks gathering momentum as they picked up speed in a some kind of collective group pursuit!
We lost the ducks around the corner and took another way back home. Lo and behold - we found another stash of beautiful, sun-warmed and fat blackberries! We couldn't help ourselves - we stopped and dined again. A little dust? Tiny cobweb here or there? Nope - wasn't stopping us! Of course, if we weren't careful we might grab one with a little red spot and ooooowwweeee would it be a little tart! Mostly though, these were ripe and begging to be enjoyed. So we did what we could! :)
No pictures, but just imagine a grinning little boy with blackberry juice all around his mouth and purple fingertips...
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