blueberry picking
August 8th, 2007 | Published in culture, photos, reading | 6 Comments
This past weekend I went blueberry picking in the forest in central Estonia. When I reflect on those two hours, a few words come to mind: flies, bugs, spiders, sweat, tasty berries, stained fingers, muscle pain. Berry picking ain’t easy, but it was worthwhile and I’d do it again. I expect I’ll pick more next time, since I started to develop a technique and will know better what to wear.
The cranberries are starting to ripen, as you can see in one of the photos, and there are mushrooms popping up that will be ready to pick before long. I don’t know that much about mushrooms or their growing seasons, so it certainly helps to have some Estonians around (all of whom seem to know everything there is to know about every kind of mushroom and berry). I also learned that soap and water won’t get rid of those blueberry stains, but scrubbing with some pale, moist moss will do the trick (and quickly, too). The funniest part of the adventure was when I tried to cross a particularly swampy part of the marsh and temporarily lost a boot. I was so surprised that I neglected to take a photo of the lonely boot stuck in the marsh and waiting for rescue.
The way to and from berry picking, and every other moment I could steal away during the weekend, was spent reading The Pirate’s Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson (Unbridled Books, forthcoming). I couldn’t put it down! Between the berries and the book, I had a very satisfying weekend. To top it all off, I was also given some tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and garlic from a local garden. I don’t think I’ll ever live in the country, but it is certainly good to have friends there.
July 29th, 2010at 4:28 pm(#)
on my other blog
August 8th, 2007at 9:17 am(#)
Glad to hear that you’re getting some of the ‘real’ Estonian experience, too. I took some Spanish blog friends into a bog & forest in Raplamaa last Saturday, and they enjoyed it a lot.
Did you see any chantarelles or porcini or gypsy mushrooms? Those all seemed to be ready last weekend, and we feasted thoroughly on them in the evening..
Did you know that apparently these are not blueberries but bilberries we have in Estonia (I mentioned that in my latest jam post)? The smaller ripe and red berries on that cranberry picture are lingonberries, I think. We picked several boxes of them last weekend, although they’re usually not in season until mid-September. And that mushroom doesn’t look like something I’d pick
August 8th, 2007at 9:24 am(#)
How do you put a slideshow in your blog? It’s great!
August 8th, 2007at 9:45 am(#)
Pille, I stand corrected! And I had even read your blog post and was wondering if you’d be calling me on that! I didn’t have time to fully research it, and I admit I wasn’t fully convinced at first. But, I did think after picking, “Did my hands turn this purple in the States? Why don’t I remember that?”
And yes, those are lingonberries, as you point out. There were plenty of those about and we ate some (and the last of the raspberries and cloudberries we found, too), but we were focused on picking the bilberries. Do you know what these other blue berries are called? They’re a paler, grayer blue, milder-tasting, and oval, and the plant grows taller than the bilberry plants.
Have any boysenberry picking tips? When we went kyacking around the islands in 2005, I went to town on the boysenberries I found there (I had never seen fresh boysenberries in the U.S., just grew up eating boysenberry yogurt). It was around this time, and I’m wondering if I can find them closer to Tallinn?
Toward the end of our picking, part of the group found some chantarelles. They didn’t share.
August 8th, 2007at 9:47 am(#)
Camila, look here for the slideshow embedding code: http://paulstamatiou.com/2005/11/19/how-to-quickie-embedded-flickr-slideshows/
Super easy, and a lot better (I think) than posting a whole bunch of photos in one post.
February 27th, 2008at 5:31 am(#)
I’m really hoping to visit Tallinn once we move to Vilnius. My dad said it was the loveliest of all the Baltic cities. I can imagine. I love the keywords description of berrypickin’!