Black Cap Raspberries

Berries, berries, and more berries.  Since I've been in Oregon, I have learned of so many berries, some wild like black raspberry caps.  Sara's has many different ones just in her garden from red raspberries, fall gold raspberries, blackberries, boysenberries, strawberries, and blueberries!  They are all so delicious, especially in jam :)  So today, we drove up the mountain to look for black caps, which are wild raspberries.  We also picked a few wild blackberries which are tiny, but veryy yummy.  Along our trip, we saw many open range cows, picked lots of berries, and got tangled up a bit too.  The black caps are super seedy, so they don't really make a good jam, so the best thing to really do with them is to make syrup.  We started before dinner and didn't finish till after...lots of straining and lots of stirring.  How is it?  I'll let you know after pancakes tomorrow morning...

The cows we passed on the way up the mountain

Jackpot spot

Black Cap Raspberries

This past week has been filled with garden work..less weeding than the past, more transplanting and harvesting..lots of berry picking.  The aphids and white flies have been a battle.  A lot of time was spent keeping up with them...spraying neem, putting down tin foil (to confuse them to which way is up) and laying mint down near plants.  Finally, it seems that we are getting a hold on them..the cucumbers are making a comeback and they are looking better and lots of cucumbers are growing.  

Picking raspberries

Golden Raspberries

Corn!

Salsa from a can, mixed with green tomatoes, onions, and jalopenos.  The hottest pepper I have ever tasted in my life.

Raspberry Jam..yumm

Thursday, Lisa and I got dropped off in Ashland and we got to explore for the day.  We went to a coffee shop, did some shopping (window shopping because it was not my price range), except for the used book store.  We drank from the Lithia water...people were told in the past that it was good for you, even though they then discovered that it wasn't.  The water did not taste good either.

The water fountains that tasted not so yummy.

Cool sign in the Ashland Co-op

Patriotic ice cream for the opening ceremony of the olympics!  With fresh raspberries and blueberries from the garden :)

Love,

Meg