Berry picking 29 July 2018

We went by our favorite fishing hole to pick berries. We are amazed at how many we got!

We ended up with my bucket and the pink one full, but the weight kept popping the handle out so we ‘split the pot’ so to speak.

So we started out around 1600/4pm.
My awesome view, Gir and Zim nodding in agreement.

10-12 miles down this road to our destination.

Once we go to our spot we seen this party foul! Not cool, but it shows the berries are here!

Now we start walking into the woods.

Yay we are finally starting to find some. Not bad, it’s keeping us motivated at least.

Here is a close up of what we are looking for.
The Cloudberry aka salmon berry. Or as the Alaskan natives call it “akpik”. You get one berry per plant, just one. So you have to find a feild to get a good amount.

I figured I might want to drop a pin where the car is.

Bigger berries and more in the bucket.

Then we find signs of humans...
Also an empty pack of smokes 😡🤬

Then I found this awesome dude 💗

Yes I caught a frog, I have been since a kid.
These are those cool frogs you see on documentaries, the ones who freeze solid and then thaw in the spring/summer. These dudes are awesome!
I think he peed on me because he was extra slimy and hard to grab/hold.

We found some blueberries too, we tried them but they are very sour.

Here is some eye candy

Starting to hit patches, yay!

Found some wolf poo

Hell yeah! Look at this feild!!! SCORE!!!!

They are bunching up and getting thick!

My bucket is getting full, and about this time the kids started to dump theirs into mine.

One of my kids found a “dinosaur foot print”.
I really did look like one!

Last berry feild before heading out.

My kids said they seen one of these plants eating a bug, it was stuck in the droplets.
So maybe a carnivorous plant 🤷‍♀️

My bucket is starting to over flow and we are not done with the last patch. So it’s time to fill up another bucket, the pink one.

I spotted a trail of wild Alaskan cotton. It was strange to see, because it went in a straight line; left to right.
So I walked up to the end of it and looked down the trail it made.
A four wheeler spread the seeds long ago, you can still see the damage from the tires making ruts.

We filled up the pink bucket to the point the handle kept popping out so we divided the load.

I checked my map to see how far out we were.
Not to bad, I had to check it one more time before arriving at the van. I was going to fare west and noticed.

I hope you enjoyed berry picking with me.

We went fishing afterwords, we broke a pole. I sunk up to mid calf in mud and left empty handed.

Except for this flower one of my boys got me