The hazards of blackberry picking

As I mention in my “I made a pumpkin…sort of” post, K and I visited Oregon this summer. Luckily for me, if not my legs, blackberries were ripe, and those bastards are literally everywhere there and are one of my very favorite fruits. So everywhere I spent more than ten seconds in I picked blackberries, no way would I let that opportunity to forage pass me by!

Before we went to visit K’s brother we stopped for K to visit with some online friends of his, and as I don’t really know these people I decided to go harvesting. I found not just blackberries, but clearly “escaped” crab apples and weirdly tiny plums, I was in my element. While K was visiting, in over ninety degree weather (WTF Oregon?!), in shorts, I braved the blackberry brambles. If you’ve never picked blackberries, let me tell you those bastards are LETHAL, they are covered in these enormous and hard thorns, and of course all the best berries were deep in brambles.

I got torn up, I mean my legs were completely chewed up! At one point I started to fall into a particularly nasty bramble, so I thrust one leg deep into that mass of killer thorns in order to keep my whole body out, but that means I got a really nasty cut that bled like a stuck pig.

It was TOTALLY worth it. For two hours I picked and ate a berry I love and rarely get to have, without feeling like I had to hurry because K is just not as into it. I got I got three gallon baggies crammed full home which I made into a really tasty jam. I have a picture of one foot purple where I stepped into berries at some point, but sadly I can’t seem to post it here.