My wife and I regularly go for evening walks and we revel in the new growth and the spring birds that return with their sweet melodic notes. It is restorative to the spirit. Try it sometime.
One of the returning plants is a the salmonberry bush with the most beautiful fuschia blossoms. You can almost predict whether it will be a good year for salmonberries by the abundance of blossoms, and it looks like this year will be a "salmonberry year." I've started carrying my Nikon Coolpix
with me on my belt, since there's so much wished we photographed.
Locals pick salmonberries in the summer months of June/July. The berries look like raspberries, because they are of the same rubus family, related to roses. Thus, they have the same woody thorny stems, trifoliate leaves, with the berries ranging in color from orange to red. Some people believe the orange are better tasting, but I never notice a difference.
Every region on the planet has a method of supporting its inhabitants by providing all the vitamins and minerals in some form or other, and salmonberries was na important source of Vitamin C to the Natives. The berries make excellent jam, but like raspberry jam, it will have plenty of seeds that like to stick in your teeth. The little chickadees and starlings love to eat the seeds, and that's one way they get redistributed. Ain't nature grand?
