• Friday-What'sUP August 15 - 11:05 pm

Our trio of photographs today, come from Ken Scheibach, Tina Hyrkas and Brita Haapala, respectively. From ripening blackberries, to plump and ready blueberries, and lastly a lone raspberry waiting to be plucked from the vine. This is one of the things that I love about summer here UP North, you can find all these berries ready for picking and better yet, for eating!

MMMM....todays pic looks YUMMY!!

Looks good enough to eat!!! Mmmm, Mmmmm!!! I wish we were there when the blackberries got ripe. Am trying to talk Mr. Deb into making a trip to pick some of them and spending more time with my folks while he's at it. We'll see as it gets closer to the end of the month.

Okay, those pictures made me hungry. Time for breakfast.

Hi
I remember when I was younger going to a blackberry patch with my cousins and picking berries to make a pie. We had to compete with our Alaskan Malamute, Misty, who ate the berries off the bush in the manner of a black bear.

I, too, remember picking blueberries and raspberries on the roadside and in the fields and swampy areas when I as a kid. Still picking strawberries, blueberries and raspberries this year in Mn. (and picked some cherries up at the store, too). I was always tickled to remind people blackberries and blueberries are red when they are green.

When I saw the pictures my first thought was "Wonder what Mr.Deb could make with those?"

Where are the timbleberries?

Excellent jam/jelly flavors!

Thats it, I'm going out and getting some berries this weekend. I have been a slacker too long. They all did great getting those pictures before eating them.

Makes me want to get out the brewing equipment and start making honey mead! I know I've made blueberry and raspberry mead, but I don't think I've made blackberry.

Kathyl, yours is the first dog I've heard about, other than one we had, that ate blackberries. We had a Sheltie mix when my children were young, and she loved to pick blackberries. I always loved to watch how she would roll back her lips so they wouldn't get pricked by the thorns. I am so sorry I never got a picture.

Where's the Thimbleberry? Can't have Chocolate Thimbleberry Torte at the Hut without them. Yum. When I married my wife, my friend sent us a gift of Thimbleberry Jam and Trenary Toast as a wedding present. Try to explain Trenary Toast to an Oklahoman!

I miss Thimbleberries!

what is honey brew? Is that the same as berry soup?

Honey mead, at it's simplest, is honey, water, and yeast. It makes a brew that resembles a light honey-flavored wine. Take 1 gallon of water, 1 to 3 pounds of honey (depending on how strongly alcoholic you want the final product to be), and brewers yeast. Mix, put in a container with an airlock, and let ferment for 3 to 6 months (more honey means a longer ferment time). Bottle, and let age for at least a year. Some meads can be drunk "green" (ie, without aging), but most benefit greatly from aging.
For fruit meads, take about 1 quart of fruit per gallon of water, crush it, strain the pulp and add the juice to the mix. I say "about" because the amount of fruit varies with the type of fruit, how strongly fruit flavored you want your final product to be, etc.
The 5 gallon food grade pail is the standard brewing vessel for most homebrew operations, but 1 gallon glass jugs work as well, especially for test batches. If you want to know more, there is lots of information available on the internet. Or visit your local brew shop and pick up a book on making mead.

Hunh! Blackberries! I've picked them in Ohio and North Carolina but, during the many years of picking blues and rasps with my dad and sibs around Marquette County, I never saw blacks. I impressed my NC mom-in-law when I made pie crust for a blackberry pie.

I've never had berry soup. There have been quite a few deer seasons where track soup has been the only result.
Mr. Deb

Kids are selling wild blueberries along the road in Hancock and Houghton. 1 1/2 qts. for $10. When you consider the drive to the patches, time spent picking, and aching backs afterwards the ten bucks is worth it!

I especially liked to eat wild strawberries, wild blackberries, pincherries, thimbleberries, blueberries from Traprock valley and raspberries. And they were all organic!

My dog loves our raspberries and now that we brought blueberries home, we've found that she likes those too. Smart dog!!!

Our golden retriever (Bear) also liked raspberries. He would carefully pick them off himself. Sally, our beagle liked them too, but we had to pick them for her. She also loved raw carrots, asparagus, green peppers, peas. The carrots were her favorite. She liked the carrots from my garden better than the store bought ones and she also preferred them peeled.

I remember picking berries in the U.P. when I was a kid and we were staying at my grandparents' cottage off of Hwy 13. I remember all of us getting a laugh when Dad reminded us, "Don't pick the red ones, 'cause the red ones are green"! I also remember my Aunt and Uncle leaving a map to their "secret" blueberry patch. It must have been over 100 acres! We ate blueberries with every meal that vacation.