Joshua and I got a tip about a park near Eugene that might be good for picking blackberries. Since it shared parking with the Mount Pisgah Arboretum, we decided to check out both. The arboretum covers 209 acres and has a number of trails with lots of different kinds of trees and flowers.
It was a cooler day than we have typically been having lately and we had a great time walking around and exploring.
The feel of early fall was in the air; some of the leaves were changing color, falling from the trees, and crunching underfoot.
This Incense Cedar tree is known as the Octopus Tree.
After strolling through the arboretum, we settled down to the business of walking along trails in the park nearby looking for blackberries. This has not been a good year for blackberries in our area. The consensus is that is probably because of the drought. A lot of the bushes don't have many berries and the ones that are there are often small and dried out. This was our second trip out to hunt for berries, and we weren't finding much again.
We ended up driving to another area where we had noticed large berries driving in and did find some blackberries. There were a few patches that were full of large plump berries, but still not a lot. However, we picked what we could find and were pretty happy with that. I think we got enough to add to the berries from our time at the coast and make a gallon of wine, which is what we want to do.
Heather, does this guy look familiar? We saw lots of spiders in the area where there were berries, but nothing like the time Heather and I picked blackberries at the Kaweah Oaks Preserve. Apparently, spiders like this enjoy hanging out by blackberry bushes. After being attacked by blackberry bushes and surprised by spiders, we cleaned up a bit and took advantage of an Olive Garden gift card that was given to us to have a date night. It was a great end to a lovely afternoon.
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