Chez StanMinn Communiqués: Blackberries


The Ides of March '10 (CAM marking his territory?)

It's that time again- blackberry season!

Following fast on the heels of blueberries, the pluses of picking this fruit is its quantity, convenience and cost.

(Being in our backyard and not a 15 minute drive up the road to the U-pick family orchard.)
The bramble, I care not for.
The bramble: of which we still have plenty.
On the west corner of the property is a triangle shaped piece of land we thought just a useless bog.
This because one of the first things our neighbor told us was that the PO had told him as much; just a marshy swamp pit he'd surely sink his shovel into if he'd tried to do anything about it.
We know now the PO was just a lying ass and this was some more of his lazy bullshit.
The winter after we'd moved in, CAM was away on a business trip and I got a wild hair to expose some of the creek shoreline.
Februaries tend to be fair and clear, with the right amount of precipitation to loosen the ground for the rhizomes to be extracted with a little elbow grease.
So I pulled on my Wellies and welder's gloves and started chopping away.
Before long, my technique became easier and productive, so by the time CAM returned, there were lots of sticker piles on what we called 'Bramble Island'.
It was also an addictive thrill to see such fast and impressive results.

And even more rowdy fun to burn the bastards in a huge fire, which grows bigger annually. The window of opportunity to attack the brier is short between conducive weather conditions and the verdant growth of spring.
That first year whetted my appetite to further tame the beast.
Subsequently, more and more of BI is reclaimed and the nature experiment continues to wow us with each passing season.

By cutting back the berries' prolific vines, we made way for the Warre bee hive (*Still* awaiting occupants, damn the pesticides.), discovered it's more of a peninsula, freed a number of North American Red Elderberry to thrive and feed the band-tailed pigeons, excavated an enormous fallen log and hidden skunk cabbage, have a cute little trail around the perimeter with a number of routes down to the water, allowed for lady ferns to propagate; ergo- lots more fiddlehead treats, and restored the natural environment for native plants to reestablish themselves.

Cam hoed out The Trough, where a small stream of the Long Tom Creek detours off before draining into it again.

An extra wet rainy season. Were it not for The Trough drain-off, the back yard would have really been soggy

Also, it turns out the washing machine's gray water is routed into this morass. Good thing we use eco-detergent, not just for the obvious environmental reasons, but because the chickens like to drink out of this occasional, murky waterfall. Idjits.

And, of course, by managing the plants better with pruning, we've helped them to flower new, healthier fruit. They're now a lot easier to get to than before.

(The green belt border on the east side is also thick with berries, but we don't mess with them too much, not being our property and all. But I still pick the close ones.)

Needless to say, it doesn't take long to fill up a colander.

So what have I been doing with the largess?

Thanks to an old NPR story, I've perfected my cobbler. Lots end up in the freezer. Some recently topped waffles made for overnight guests. I'm experimenting with adding them to booze. And again this year, I've tried making jam. Just canned, it's yet to set, which makes me terribly anxious.

But now that the rains have come, we're going to have to act fast before they become a mass of purple goo.

Because he's a big guy and can get to the trickier bunches, CAM gathers the goods and then I make them into something delicious.

The goofball birds like to follow him around hoping for handouts, though they can (and do) easily get at them themselves.

Last year I made every different version there is- buckle, crisp, coffee cake, pie, crumble, crostata, muffins, you name it.
But the best by far was my dreamy cobbler, of course.