Saturday, August 15, 2009

Berry Picking at the Magic Swamp

August is a berry picking month. And this year we´ve been blessed with plentiful crops of big and delicious berries of all kinds.

So berry picking is one of our main activities at the moment, followed by cooking jams for our winter "stock" :)

The (European) blueberries

The (very rare) "Canadian" blueberries, as we call them.
In our area, they grow only at Lillsjön swamp (pssst! Don´t tell our neighbours) :)

The rare cloudberries (also called the "polar berries"),
which grow only at swamps and marshes

A berry I forgot a name of.
Tastes a bit like red current, and is quite vitamin C rich. We don´t pick those for jams, there isn´t enough of them, but they sure are great to pick just to eat as they are :)
I love the Lillsjön lake and swamp. There is a little creek you have to cross, which is always fun for the puppies, and a useful training "obsticle" when we drive the dogs through this place.
You can find the cotton grass here, the beautiful pink heather, blueberries, low bush cranberries (lingonberries), cloudberries, and even the Canadian blueberries.
This time we came across several bear tracks, as I did in April, during the puppy harness breaking run (you can find the story in the April archive). There are dozens of tiny paths that zig-zag the swamp in various directions, created by moose, bears and other inhebitants of the forrest.
A very special place, full of live, in deed!
Many beautiful pictures of the Lillsjön swamp, taken while we picked berries, can be found in this album:

No comments: