The bad side of this berry patch is that a lot of berries are just out of reach, but I can't resist going after them anyway. Sometimes I end up in the middle of a berry bush and have a hard time getting back out. I always carry my cell phone just in case I have to call the Technical Rescue Team.
I know that nobody would believe my good berry picking, so I took pictures. I took the photos with my cell phone and I'm not nearly as clever as Kym Kemp at Photoshop, so what you see is what you get.
Hey everybody, I know Ernie's secret blackberry spot. It's at Snyder Rock..
ReplyDeleteOregon
Drat... Now evrybody will be picking MY berries.
ReplyDeleteNot me. I was pretty excited with all the blackberries when I first moved up here. After almost 40 years of living up here I consider them more a nuisance than anything else.
ReplyDelete-the way we do it is we eachtake two pieces of plywood with us, big enough to sit on, and throw them whoooop up onto the bush and crawl up onto them. A ladder helps too. When you get up there, the bush will support your weight. And you can sit on one of your plywoods and pick berries for a spell, then when your spot gets picked you move on to the other piece of plywood and when you finish there you throw the other one that's behind you now that you were on first ahead and move up and on to that one, you get the picture . . . And you keep going up and over. In a day you can leapfrog right over the top of a huge blackberry bush. Picking the biggest lushest juiciest berries from the very very tippy top. Nothing's too high for suzy, LOL! but you best wear a big sunhat. Yum.
ReplyDeletebyw, where are those myberry pie recipes?
Ernie of Myberry, Oregon with the good secrets, some sweet and practical suzy blah blah tips, Fred all curmudgeonly on berries, this is just like ol' times...
ReplyDeleteI just told olmanriver that the slice of pie you offered him and me was gettin' closer and closer.
Where is Snyder rock? Seems like I should know?
ReplyDeleteRoss
ReplyDeleteActually it's Snider Rock. That's probably why you didn't recognize it.
Suzy
When I was a kid, back before everything was against the law, and forcing kids to pick blackberries was child abuse, my grandmother Ruby in Laytonville would pile about eight of her grandkids in the back of her old 47Chevy pick-up truck and head out berry picking. Her favorite place was the cow field at the Rancho El Primero, about three miles north of Laytonville. We would take 1x12 planks with us. She would throw them across the berry patch, then we would walk out on them to pick berries. My favorite berry has always been "the end berry". That is the one at the very tip, it is always the first to ripen, and it is always the sweetest. That one always goes in my mouth. No exceptions!
My grandmother could always pick about three times as many berries as anybody else. I don't know how she did it. She always said that it was because she put hers in the bucket, and didn't eat them. Berry stains around my mouth must have been very revealing.
My grandmother lived to be 92 years old. Up until the year she died, everybody that she knew would get a box of different kinds of jellies for Christmas. I had jelly for five years after she died.
For some reason, I don't know why, my grandmother always shared her garden and orchard with anybody that wanted pick things.
Most everybody in Laytonville knew each other. There was no such thing as a private berry patch. It was first come first serve on berry patches, but, whoever owned the berry patch always got some of Grandma's jelly. I think that they were glad to see her out there in their fields picking their berries.
Gabby,
it's getting closer...
Ernie,Even the spelling change didn't help any??? LOL!
ReplyDeleteJust tell me the general location please,like on the river??
BTW and off subject!!!!
Ernie,Was there a public free "Dump" around Garberville in the Fifties? I think there was? But for the life of me,I can't remember where it was???
Thanks
My grandmother lived to be 92 years old. Up until the year she died, everybody that she knew would get a box of different kinds of jellies for Christmas.
ReplyDelete-i've heard that giving to others extends life expectancy. If Christmas was everyday we'd have a really reallly bad population problem, but everyone would have jelly to put on their toast ... so maybe it wouldn't be so bad afterall
Ross, It's Snyder Rock. Ernie is messin' with you so everybody else gets confused and not find that patch.
ReplyDeleteOregon
Ross
ReplyDeleteMaybe it was Sidner Rock. The good thing is nobody has found my patch!
Off the subject. Yes indeed Garberville had a free dump. Clear up until the late seventy's(?)When the county built a landfill dump at the old Benbow mill site. They abandoned that when they found out that Bert Benbow had retained the right-of-way to get to the dump. He charged the county by the ton to drive on his road. The county built the Eel River transfer station because it was cheaper to haul the trash to eureka that is was to pay Bert.
The "Free dumpsite" was up the Alderpoint road about a half mile, just past the CDF fire station on the right. There was a large concrete dock that you backed up to then threw your trash over a sandstone bluff into a canyon below. Tires cars, and anything else you wanted to put there went into the dump. There were absolutely NO restrictions. About twice a year somebody would set it on fire. There would be a large column of black smoke would go straight up, then bend and follow the winds aloft. Airplanes pilots used to fly through it for thrills.
People would dig through the stuff for salvage. Others would shoot rats. GOOD TIMES!
At least two pickups backed over the bluff while dumping their trash. It was only about a twenty foot fall. One truck was coach McKamey and Coach Yamagata. Nobody was ever injured that I know of.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ernie,I remember now!
ReplyDeleteWhat about Huckle Berries?
ReplyDeleteI just made a blackberry pie with the local berries. I can't post a picture on here but it wouldn't need photoshop to make your mouth water.
ReplyDelete