Cranberry Hunting

My favorite thing to do in October is to hunt for Bog Cranberries and Lingonberries.  I am just addicted to it!  I call it "hunting" because that is was it is ....hunting, with very little picking!!  This activity is not for the faint of heart...success is measured in cups because they are very hard to find in the Sitka area.  I spend hours and hours and hours crawling on my knees through the muskeg for a handful or two of berries!   They are very tough to spot...there are some Lingonberries in this photo....can you see them?

How about now?

There they are!!

See how little they are?

And here are some Bog Cranberries...

They look like jewels, sitting on top of the moss...

They are tiny also...

The mother lode!!!

I just can't get enough of these things....

Both types of berries taste very similar and can be mixed together to make cranberry sauce.  They make the best cranberry sauce you will ever have.....hands down!  The trick is to learn how to identify the different type of berries in the muskeg...

One gal I know calls these "trick" berries....because they are so bright and cheerful and it is easy to mistake them for the good berries...

I have been picking berries this week every time I get the chance.....and Lucy often comes with me....

She can get around the muskeg pretty good.  She tries to figure out what I'll picking, but the berries are so hard to find that she gets frustrated and confused...what is all the excitement about anyways, she wonders?
She sticks with me for awhile and then she wanders off and disappears for about a half hour or so at a time, but always shows up before it's time to leave.  Today she rolled around in something disgusting and I had to give her a bath when we got home because she stank so bad!!!

Mr. Adams went to pick with me today...

I'm not sure if he thinks I'm crazy or if he thinks it's fun too....he likes to give me a hard time...

I do know that he thinks the cranberry sauce is delicious!!!!!!  Here's the results of about 6 hours of picking..

Once we were home I washed the berries.

 The Lingonberries have a stubby little stem I like to remove, but the Bog Cranberries have a strong hairlike stem that I don't bother removing....we just have hairy sauce...

Picking these berries is just addictive....I can't get enough of it....the weather has been really decent and the muskeg is so beautiful this time of year....just look at these colors!!