Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Blackberries: Mannah from Heaven, Thorn in my Side

We have blackberries in our back yard. Lots and lots of blackberries. If we were to abandon our house, I suspect it would only be a matter of a couple of years before our entire house and yard were covered in vines. It is INSANE. But, we love eating the fruit. So we put up with a small amount for the deliciousness that comes with having a blackberry vine in your backyard.

We are prepping for Lacy's birthday party, and have been trimming back blackberry vines. I was actually not even trimming vines at all, just brining some wood back to the woodshed, and a vine came out and grabbed me. Oh my, it hurt. I really should have been wearing long pants. It was cool enough to do so, but I was wearing capris today. Ouch.


But, we found a ton of ripe berries that we picked. The girls would eat them almost as fast as we could pick them. Rose started picking on her own. In a week or two, we're going to have a ton of them ripe, and the girls will have a heyday outside picking and eating as much as they want.



We actually have five species of berries growing in our yard. Blackberries, blueberries, red huckleberries, strawberries, and our newest discovery, blue raspberries. They look an awful lolt like blackberries, and at first I thought they were just a mutated bunch of blackberries. Dave found some later and said, "Hey, look! We have blue raspberries!" They aren't as shiny as blackberries and the drupelets are smaller than in a blackberry, and the fruit is smaller and more rounded than a blackberry. They are a little tasteless, but are okay tasting. The girls didn't seem to mind, though, and ate them right up!

We also found a couple of interesting bugs today. I've never seen a white spider before, and the second bug is about the biggest but I've ever seen around here.


And a couple of pictures from last night. I walked into the room to check on the girls, and this is how I found them. Lacy usually sleeps in her own bed, but when her dad's gone, she can fall asleep in our bed if she likes.

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