Oh, and before anyone says anything, I do indeed know the difference between portrait and landscape. I took some of each; just liked this one better. I promise, however, that if I ever post a video I will shoot it in PORTRAIT on purpose to completely annoy you.
Anyway.
This shouldn't be as wordy as the last post, but I thought I should mention that I had a little revisit of my childhood yesterday. Dad's few saskatoon bushes were absolutely loaded with fruit, so I picked about half a margarine container full so that they wouldn't go to waste. Waste? No, that's not quite right. The rest can go to the birds, which won't be a waste, or to casual grazing by Dad when he's gardening.
For whatever reason, the nursery-stock saskatoons seem to be having bumper crops this year. I say nursery-stock, because many of the wild ones I've seen set fruit that then dried up because hello drought conditions. The more domesticated ones seem happy enough, though, and the u-picks are saying that they have some of the best crops ever.
I grew up on saskatoons, but for those who haven't had the pleasure think blueberry but with a somewhat brighter taste. They're kind of a thing on the prairies/parkland, and for some reason (many people think soil conditions) grow much sweeter here than in other parts of Canada.
Wondering about the not-berry in the title? That's because saskatoons aren't berries, as much as people may call them that. They're pomes. For you French speakers out there who may be thinking that I'm missing an m in pome, I'm not. That's just science-speak for a structure that's like an apple.
When I was a kid my maternal grandmother did a lot of canning and preserving, and much of that was wild fruit. Chokecherry (which, despite the name, is pretty fantastic once sugar's added and it's cooked down), pincherry, nanking cherry from her yard (not wild here, but practically grow wild once you get them going), and, of course, saskatoon. Mom and I used to go out and help her harvest them, which sometimes was fun and sometimes... was not. Hey, they were both pretty strong-willed women, and some days that's confusing as a kid.
Not all saskatoons were preserved, of course. Some were used fresh, and some were frozen for use later in pies and things like that. My grandmother made a mean saskatoon pie. Well, she made a mean pie anyway, but saskatoon pies are what I miss most.
I wish I could make pies.
Ah well. The most complicated thing that will happen to these particular saskatoons is that they'll be scattered on some ice cream, and that's ok too. And as for spiders on roses that have nothing at all to do with blather topics? They're better than ok, you know.
Yes, really.
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