Wild berries for the wild minded

Blueberries out of all berries have a permanent hold on my heart.  They are physical embodiment of grand memories with even grander people.  Blueberries are a quick break while doing trail work with my best friend Emily while we served on hitches in the White Mountains (NH).  They’re hiking around Acadia with some friends from SCA’s NH Corps and getting to enjoy Maine’s renown berries.  It’s seeing someone one last time, capping off a day of swimming below a waterfall with an important friend before she moves from Washington to South Carolina for six years of grad school.  Now it’s picking with folks from my first federal position and getting to enjoy the beauty that Minnesota offers.

Some fool wore chacos… lessons learned.

First go

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zack the forager

First pickin’

My like for berries, especially wild ones, should have been evident by now.  Wherever we do stocking surveys Zack and I run into raspberries plants and oftentimes blueberries in addition.  We’ve seen strawberry plants but they’ve long passed their prime and have been bare for weeks.  During a survey I once asked Zack if he ever felt like a bear when he picks berries.  He replied yes and I was relieved to know I wasn’t the only one who thought that way.  There’s a decent chance he could’ve just been humoring me but…

Second time around

On Thursday Sarah from the recreation department did stocking surveys with me while Zack check cruised some timber with our supervisor Corey.  Our survey site was located off the Southeast corner of Decker Lake and my, oh my!  Berries as far as you could see.  Nearest to the road were blueberries and as you traveled further south to the survey, raspberries.  It was a perfect picking moment as the mosquitoes weren’t out and the deer flies were hardly a nuisance.  However our mission was to complete the stocking survey in order to move on to a new site- of course it goes without saying we did grab a berry or two as we walked.

Generally being a less than observant person, I excited told Wendy at the office of our find that afternoon.  My excitement spreading, Wendy decided that she was going to pick berries after work and easily convinced me to go along.  Linda was in as well and we all met up at six and set off.  Come to find out, the site I was so stoked about was where Wendy, some of the seasonals (Zack, Ben, Art, Karl), and myself had gone to our first and only other time berry picking.  This time we were on the South side of the road though.

Wendy fears no mosquitoes

It was a glorious picking as we nearly had our buckets filled in less than two hours whereas the first time around I didn’t even have my bucket a third of the way full in what was probably about the same time frame.

Second pickin’

 

There wasn’t enough time to go after raspberries with the blueberry bushes loaded with tiny fruit.  What was I to do with what would be over 24 cups of blueberries?  I talked about canning them on the ride home and Wendy just happened to have a pot and extra jars/lids/bands I could use and was kind enough to drop them off that Friday morning.

 

 

 

Honey!

Never having canned anything before I spent what might’ve been a ridiculous amount of time reading how to can and jam recipes before going with a simple berry, honey, and lemon juice one.  The viscous honey eliminated the need for pectin which I was more than happy about.  I finally got around to processing the berries and making jam on Saturday which turned into an over six-hour ordeal.  With the mosquitoes biting during berry picking I had put quantity over quality end ended up with heaps of leaves and twigs in my bucket that I had to separate from the berries.  Making the jam itself and canning it was actually the quick part.  We’ll see how the jars keep and travel as I plan to ship them to my folks in Washington.  Although the freshly made jam was delicious on just as freshly baked bread.

 

 

 

4 cups of magic

Starting to boil…

Remnants

The art of stocking

The last couple of weeks have been busy.  Stocking surveys have largely consumed my life at work.  These surveys are mandated by law for the forest to complete to check on recovery rates.  The Chippewa has always done well in both stocking surveys as well as assisting in the restoration of forests.  Over a million and a half trees are planted each year here!  1.5 million.  1,500,000 baby trees in the ground a year.  We’ve got a pretty darn good survival rate and the Blackduck Ranger District is the proud owner of the tree cooler that houses the trees before transplanting.

Beaver Dam found during a survey

Based on the fun scale with type 1 being fun in the moment, type 2 being fun after the fact, and type 3 never fun- it seems safe to say that stocking surveys are most definitely a type 3 fun.  We keep hoping for a hot and dry streak to kill off some mosquitoes but it’s rained every weekend without fail. Rain often makes an appearance weekday evenings while we sleep.  If nothing else the ticks have slowed down in activity.  The mosquitoes overall have decreased and in turn have been replaced by a spike in the number of deer flies.  It’s the worst when you’re doing a survey where there’s an abundance of both.  Your mosquito net hardly stands a chance against the forces of nature.

Butterfly atop raspberry plants

I was mistaken when I previously stated that we only survey naturally regenerated units.  We do survey planted units but they are few and far between (and a lot easier to survey than natural units).  Fire’s been generous enough to lend their three seasonals to us for a day and were going to help us with more days but the rest of them just received a call today to go West.  One of the fire crew members is already in Washington while the other two and a recreational seasonal will fly out to my home state.  The fires are furious and the land is dry.

Karl (fire crew) heads to the next point

Zack, Jarrod, and I have been trucking along with stocking surveys as they have an August deadline of when all the data needs to be collected and then entered onto the computer.  We’re more than halfway through but it seems like an eternity before we finish the last few dozen units.  The ground we trek through has oftentimes been marshy and unpleasant, resulting in many days with soaked boots.  Luckily timber supervisor Corey ordered several boot dryers for the bunkhouse which have been lifesavers.

Typical sight

During all of this I’ve been lucky enough to utilize a smidgen of GIS technology to create the maps for the points as well as to locate the units.  Turns out the predetermined points within a unit actually follow a formula based on acres to determine how many points are within a unit.  Also as map maker I place the points in as random a fashion as possible.  None of the GIS is complicated but I’m extremely excited to have been on ArcMap this summer.

An example map of a sale. More detailed maps of each unit were made in addition to the overall map.

Raspberries for days

A well deserved snack

Although the going is tough, the wild berries almost make the task worth it.  Like many northern states, Minnesota is home to an abundance of raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries.  Wild berries tend to be on the smaller side than their farmed counterparts and that’s especially true of strawberries.  I’ve seen some decent blueberries that could almost rival farmed varieties though.  I’ve even been introduced to berries I’ve never heard of before like June berries.  A quick hand grabs a berry or two as we hike and slips it under the mosquito net, hoping that mosquitoes didn’t follow that hand.  There’s not a lot that can panic me more on a survey than a mosquito buzzing in the space between the net and my face.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Through the course of stocking surveys we’ve encountered all sorts of terrain.  True most of it is swampy but occasionally we get dry land or strange marshes.  Once in awhile Zack and I have even encountered a hill.  Elevation’s a rare beast here and it’s always exciting for us two folks from the West.  We joke that we’ve Minnesota based jumped when I accidentally dropped two feet into a dip.

Zack leads on during a rainy day

Aspens are overwhelmingly the majority of saplings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A quick recap of how stocking surveys are done-
1) drive as close to site as highways and forest roads allow
2) hike in, try to stay dry (never works)
3)usually start at furthest point and work our way back towards the truck
4)one person runs a 11.8 feet circle plot while the other records
5)note saplings’ height and DBH (diameter at breast height)
6)shoot large trees with a 10-basal area factor prism
7)measure DBH of ‘in’ trees and height (using a clinometer)
8)move on to next point and repeat

11.8 feet out

Measuring DBH

 

Timber’s aiming to slam the rest of the surveys and finish in about a week, two at the maximum.  After that a significant amount of data entry awaits us.  Zack’s been entering the data we compile from the field into a program called examsPC but I’ll be left with the FACTS data entry that results from that.  It’s far from exciting work but necessary in resource management within a forest.

 

 

 

 

Wild strawberry!