Urban forager

Sign below mulberry tree

Last Friday, I headed down to Denning's Point in search of berries. I've seen several mulberry trees, strawberries, and raspberry canes getting ready to burst, and it felt like time to forage...

Raspberries were first up:

That's a lot of raspberries.


These guys weren't quite ready, but plenty of others were.

I don't know what these two are. I think the berries in the second might be currants?




Leo got to swim in the Hudson:




Then we heard thunder - not exactly a surprise, since it seems like there has been rain every day this summer - so we took off for the car. But first, the mulberries.




I didn't know the flash was on for this, but the unripe berry looked just like that a moment later when there was lightning.




We made it home just before the sky opened up. I had to rush to work, so doing something with berries had to wait. All told, there were about two and a half cups of berries. I made a smoothie with about half of them, plus some blueberries. Mulberries are (mostly) on the left, some with stems; black raspberries (mostly) on the right.




These have been growing in the jungle on the side of my apartment. The landlord said she wouldn't go through the trouble of picking them, but I was welcome to.




The rest of the Denning's Point berries and the backyard blackberries topped a Big Pancake this morning. The camera battery died before I could get closeups of the berries and whipped cream. Suffice it to say that it tasted as good as "fresh berries and fresh whipped cream" sounds.




While walking the dog a few days ago, I discovered the next frontier in my urban forages: a tall old apple tree by the water tower up the hill. Looks like I'll need to find a ladder before autumn...