It is now officially summer, my very favorite season (although fall is a close second). Summers in the Northwest are SO very different from summers in the California desert that I grew up in. Whereas in sunny SoCal, the temperatures rise into the hundreds, here in Washington the climate stays mild and I feel that the state is truly at its best on warm sunny summer afternoons.
Something I was not used to at all when I moved to the Seattle area is that things grow wild and free here, delicious things you can eat, like berries. This was quite unheard of to me, that one could simply step off the road and into a blackberry bramble, and have a snack of freshly picked berries.

All along the North Creek Trail near my office, blackberries grow wild and are ready for picking unseasonably early this year. After weeks of watching them slowly ripen, I could tell that the blackberries were ready to be eaten. A few of my work buddies and I have taken great pleasure in gathering them up on our walking breaks. Today we filled two big bowls with the delicious blackberries, with plans to turn them into blackberry crisp, or slump, or jam, or all of the above.

Tomorrow’s forecast predicts rain, but Wednesday is supposed to be sunny, which means we’ll have more blackberries to pick!