Almost 7 full weeks of production from my blackberries! We usually get pretty creative by the time things wrap up – freezing, tarts, yogurt n’ berries, pies, jams and of course the pick n’ go anytime you want. One of the great things about these lovely little guys is that most folks around the metro area seem to be sick of them – they grow everywhere.

Why pay $3 per pint when you get walk around and grab yourself free berries by the pound!

The survey tech’s checklist: map, compass, GPS, radio, sunflower seeds, sunglasses, field notebook, camera and a vest so as not to get an arrow stuck in your back by the anxious camouflaged hunters sitting in trees. I put in another round of survey’s for our East zone Archaeologist for the Rocky project.

These have nothing at all to do with my internship other than the fact I thought a few of you may appreciate yet another PNW rarity: the cobra lily. Darlingtonia Californica as its known lives only in a few isolated pockets in Oregon – this particular bog and preserve along the coast just north of Florence (Chelsea probably knows these!) being one of them. My oldest son stared at them for about 30 minutes just waiting for one to grow a mouth, reach up and snatch one of the unsuspecting insects in the area. 🙂

Still plugging away at the facilities side of things. What we thought was a quarter-sized hole to add a little spackling to turned out to be a sizeable bee/wasp nest of yesteryear.

Had the opportunity to chaperone one of the many Cascade Mountain School (CMS) camps in August. This particular camp was called Farm to Table Bike camp: it was 4 days of Trout Lake Valley biking, farm visits, full circle food discussions, games and good eats with the middle schoolers from the French American school in Portland.   Broadfork hosted us and I can say without a doubt that everyone had a spectacular time.

Hard to take selfies of yourself swimming but this place was one of the special ones I visited more than once. Punchbowl falls just outside of Dee, Oregon. Great place to cool off (or chill yourself to the bone) in the west fork of Hood river . I’m not going to post up all the pictures that we took during our last POD meeting, as I don’t want to steal any future thunder some may have in store for us all. I will say that Jimmy totally killed it as host of the last west-side POD a few weeks ago –Thanks Jonathan for frying up those kings, so tasty!

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