BLUEBERRIES, WILD AND TAME

SIOUX RIVER BEACH

WILD BLUEBERRY BUSHES...

...CLUSTER OF WILD  BLUEBERRIES

HANDFUL OF WILD BLUEBERRIES

HANDFUL OF DOMESTIC BLUEBERRIES

Thursday,  8:00 AM.  62 degrees F, up from much cooler earlier.  Wind NE, with light gusts.  The sky is overcast and there has been a heavy dew.  The humidity is 92% and the barometer  is more or less steady, at 30.13".  Our weather has been virtually the same for days and looks as though it will continue so for some days to come.
   Buddy and I went to the Sioux River beach yesterday morning, I to pick wild blueberries, he to run through the swamp and get disgustingly wet and muddy for the first time since his accident several weeks ago.  We both accomplished our individual purposes with considerable satisfaction.
   The blueberry bushes at the beach have a number of different descriptive common names, the best I think is low sweet blueberry, for which the scientific name is Vaccinium angustifolium, in the heath family, the Ericaceae. It forms extensive mats that spread by underground stems.  The plants are very short, usually less than a foot in height.  Their native range is northeastern US and southeastern Canada, and they grow on sandy, rocky shores, bogs and other acidic soils.
   The berries are plentiful this year but as always hard to pick, and the berries being tiny it took a half an hour to pick about two cups full.
   They are tasty and sweet, but it is easy to realize how much time it takes to be a hunter-gatherer.  I will repeat a comment I heard or read somewhere about a discussion between an Indian and a white man, the Indian saying, "You white guys think us Indians just lay around all day, but let me tell you, an Indian is busy all the time gathering wild food and hunting, and performing all the necessary ceremonies that go along with it." He might have mentioned the cultural knowledge needed to determine what is edible and what is not, and cited picking blueberries as an example.
   Not that many years ago the local Ojibwa Indians used to pick wild blueberries and sell them, but at even minimum wage the price today would have to be about $8.00 a pint to make it at all worth the effort, although one does become more adept at it with experience, and perhaps a hand-held rake or comb might help.  There are mechanical pickers used in Canada and New England for harvesting wild blueberries which would be interesting to see.
   The largest commercial blueberry farm in Wisconsin, Highland Valley Farm,  is just over the bluffs to our west.  They started picking last Monday, from their high-bush blueberry bushes.  We will buy thirty pounds of frozen blueberries from them for our winter use.
   It is hotly debated whether wild blueberries taste better than domestic blueberries.  I consider them both good, the wild being somewhat more intense in flavor, but on the whole, all things considered, they aren't much different, but as scarce and difficult to harvest as they are,  few people would be eating wild blueberries (although they are available from commercial harvesters at times in the grocery store).  The wild berries are reportedly higher in antioxidants.
   I personally believe that blueberries are very beneficial to one's eyesight, and we consume a lot of them, both fresh and frozen,  year 'round.  And, I will say that there is nothing like a wild-blueberry pie, and my freshly picked berries are going to friend Judy Larsen, who has promised to bake one.
  Buddy won't get any pie, as he didn't help pick the berries.