Slim Pick'ins

I guess this pic fairly well sums up our berry picking expedition. The blackberries were not any where near ready and they are badly in need of some rain. This bunch looks good compared to most that we saw. If we get a decent rain in the next few days there will be a very nice crop. The berries will be smallish but there are a lot of them. There were a few nice late season raspberries but someone else was already picking those. The big disadvantage of a easy access berry patch, other berry pickers! Our next stop was our patch of gooseberries.

I left the camera in the car because this patch is not easy access so the only pic you get of the goose berries is the 8 pints of jelly Ann made with our pickings.These were the smooth gooseberry but that name definitely only refers to the fruit. Those canes had thorns on their thorns! The patch is on a nice river flood plain of old soft maples and thorn apple. Mixed in with that was a lot of saw briar and, as if that was not enough, a very generous growth of wood nettle. It made for very interesting picking conditions.
After we felt we had accumulated enough thorn pricks and nettle stings we gave up and went for a walk on the river bank.The river was very low. Lots of american hazel nuts along that stretch of ground. The burr oaks we looked at have some acorns on but nothing like last years crop. We checked out another flowage for wild rice and were pleased to see it looking well along. Will probably be a early ricing season. That got us so excited that we  went yesterday and bought our rice harvesting permit just so we will be ready!