[foraging] Wild Blackberries

This past Sunday I was out in the yard looking at some flowers and saw lots of perfectly ripe blackberries hanging over the flowerbed:

I was immediately suspicious, because last year I was hardly able to gather more than one cup's worth. Birds and animals would always get them before me. But I ran inside to get a container and picked them all. Then I walked out along a fourth class road that leads to my great-uncle's hunting cabin, along which I saw many unripe bushes earlier in the summer.

More ripe blackberries!

I picked about three quarts in total- and it was all freeeeeeee.

I washed and froze most. I saved some out to make blackberry and peach bars:

These bars are my favorite way of using local, seasonal fruit. I made rhubarb bars in the spring, wild black raspberry bars in mid-summer and now wild blackberry bars in late summer. They are so easy to bring together and are sooooooo good with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.