A Wilderness Adventure

The 'Barrens': a rough and rugged sandy land, characterized by scrub oak and jack pines, raging fires, bracken fern and sweet fern, ruffed grouse, black bears and...wild blue berries. Every year we head out to the Moqua Pine Barrens to pick those wild blueberries and this year was to be no exception. Accordingly late this morning we loaded up the van with water jugs, a backpack, compasses, trail mix, coolers, buckets for picking, my dog Abby and the four of us, (my parents, nineteen year old brother Michael and myself). Now, all roads in the barrens are gravel, rocks and sand, an adventure in itself, so my very skilled father took the wheel and we went merrily on our way. Soon the smell of the country rose to meet us, sweet fern, a distinctly sweet unforgettable smell. All around us was a newly burned area, acres upon acres of blackened land now covered in new growth. Fires in the barrens are a major part of it's eco system, they are now, more often than not, controlled burns started by the DNR (Department of Natural Resources), they rid the land of foreign plant invaders and among other things, help the blueberry plants.

We found 'our spot' which has not been burned for a couple of years and began looking. And guess what we found?

Blueberries!

Loads of them, we have never seen such a good year, the plants were heavy with berries and they were much larger than normal. We think this bumper crop must be due to the cold spring and abundant rain that we have had this year.

We had a great time picking!

My brother Michael

The weather was fantastic and the view from 'our' ridge we amazing.

We are very blessed by the Lord and are ever so thankful. We picked a little over two gallons in four hours, but before you think we are slow pickers let me give you a perspective on this, the berries are about a quarter inch in diameter this year which is about twice their normal size. So...to accumulate that many berries you have to pick allot!

We can hardly wait for our wild blueberry favorite, blueberry cheesecake!

On our way home, as an extra special treat my Dad took us all to A&W and treated us to burger combos! This is 'big time' for us healthy eaters!