Harvest Time - Busy as the Bees

Blackberries are everywhere!

The spiders love to make webs
in the dense berry bushes

Vancouver Island is an agricultural paradise of small and large farms.  The year's season is coming to a close and there are but two more weeks of Saturday farmer's markets left.  The fall colors in the fields of pumpkins, rhubarb, and squashes signal the change from the summer colors of tomatoes, corn and berries.  

The bees are busy gathering pollen
to make honey

We've picked blackberries almost every day since we arrived. Everywhere and free for the picking, we can't resist.  Pick one, eat two, pick two, eat three...our fingers are stained purple.  

We're enjoying them so much that we've become blackberry hoarders.  We rinse them, let them air dry, spread them out on a cookie sheet and then freeze them - we're not going to run out anytime soon.  All this berry picking has made us more creative in working them into our diet - salads, desserts, and pancakes are all adorned with these plump purple beauties.  The bees aren't the only ones who've been busy in the berries! 

Is there a 12 step program for berry hoarders?

With raspberry sherbet and a dollop of thick Greek yogurt - this has become our daily dessert

Salad for lunch (so it's okay to have the sherbet and yogurt every night, right?)