wANDERING bERRIES

In the summer, Oregon’s Willamette Valley becomes a massive producer of fresh fruit. One of my family’s favorite traditions is to go berry picking. We tend to focus on strawberries (I think we picked about 20 lbs from Daum’s Produce Farm), blueberries (about 40 lbs from Fordyce Farm), and blackberries (more than 5 lbs free from Minto Brown Island Park) but we sometimes get raspberries and others (see here for a complete listing).


I think there is nothing better than the sweetness of a sun-warmed and still slightly dusty blueberry eaten just picked out in the field. I highly recommend it! Plus, what can you do with the berries besides make jams, preserves, and pies (well, and eat them straight too of course)?

But if picking berries is too much work for you, or too warm, or for some reason you don’t like fresh fruit (which would be sad!), there is another option. Not too far away in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains is Silver Falls State Park. My favorite hike is the Trail of Ten Falls (only 8 miles round trip though there are ways to make it shorter), which is well worth it if you love water. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves!