Blackcaps!

Day 316: Mmmmmmm, blackcaps! Even half-ripe Rubus leucodermis will stop me in my tracks for a quick nibble. Nature's provender includes a number of very tasty things in abundant quantities (blue huckleberries, for example), but in all my travels, I have never discovered a patch of Blackcap Raspberries large enough to satisfy my craving for them, and certainly never sufficient to collect for jam. The blue-stemmed vines are easy to recognize, one here, one there, each with a handful of fruit. Gathering them reminds me somewhat of eating sunflower seeds, i.e., a lot of work for very little in the way of caloric value. Still, they are such a special treat that I carry a mental map of where they occur within easy walking distance of the office. Oddly, only a very few of my Park colleagues bother with them. They don't know what they're missing!

Distraction

Day 311: Nothing distracts me quite like Nature's provender. I'd gone out on assignment, looking for a good shot of the lower forest environment for display at Mount Rainier National Park's booth at the Washington State Fair, and was just coming back to the car after making a circuit of the short Twin Firs trail when I spotted wild blackcap raspberries ripe on the vine. These are not particularly common in the Park because they prefer to grow in disturbed soil. If it hadn't been for that windstorm a couple of years ago, this spot would have been like the rest of the surrounding habitat: ferny, full of Canadian dogwood and vanilla leaf growing up through a duff of mixed evergreen debris. That windstorm uprooted several old trees, snapped others, opening up the canopy, stirring up the soil and giving these blackcaps the opportunity to grow. Alongside them, trailing blackberries covered the ground. They too were ripe and ready, but Rubus leucodermis took precedence. Some things are just too good to pass up, and like this species, I seized the moment. You can learn a lot from plants, if you take my meaning.