We just got back on Tuesday from a trip to PA. Having a baby has definitely changed our style of vacationing! The Peninsula seems so much further than it ever used to feel. Ok, perhaps that’s because we need to pack like we’re wintering in Juno but anyway… I digress.

We had a lovely time seeing the Wendels out at the lake even though the weather wasn’t as sunny as we’d hoped it would be. Slanky went skiing but I only touched the water to confirm there was no way I was getting in.

We also did a little hanging out with the family. My mom and grandma’s house sits on a couple acres of wooded land and so I returned to a favorite childhood hobby of mine-foraging. Naturally, in the city it’s a little hard to find great berry patches but out there was a gold mine. My mom and I took a little trip around the property and we found black caps (zillions of bushes, most weren’t ripe yet), huckleberries (which she kept referring to as currants), black berries and salmon berries (elusive, usually those are better found deeper in wooded areas or at least around taller trees than where we were). I also saw one thimble berry bush but none of the berries were ripe yet. Here’s our bounty after just a little while.

My mom was very impressive. She’d tromp through a bunch of sticker bushes just to get at a few ripe berries. On our way back Slanky and Mr J met up with us and got to pick a few berries too.

It was only berry picking but something about it, something I can’t quite put into words, made me really happy and perhaps a little sad in some small way. I felt pretty nostalgic as we were winding around in the wooded areas… an activity that I took for granted in my early childhood and it isn’t something that my children will really get to experience the way I did. Ok, enough with the heavy stuff.

We got the berries back to the house and experimented with making a pie out of them. It mostly tasted like blackberry but it was still a fun experiment. I think I’d like to try just salmon berries or just black caps. We had leftover dough so we decided to make a turnover with some strawberries that were grown by my grandma’s friend. My mom and Grandma were skeptical but allowed me to experiment so I made a balsamic strawberry one. I used about a tablespoon of vinegar and you could just taste a hint. I’d use more next time to bring out the flavor.

Anyway. It was a satisfying result to tromping in the woods with my mom. I’m thinking about persuading her to bring more black caps with her next time she comes but I know her adventures wouldn’t be as fun solo. But damn, those berries were good!