Tastes grow with age...

    

Whew!  Finally getting that hot summer that everyone has been hoping for!  Mashing through thick brush wearing Carhartt’s and a long sleeve shirt in 85F sure makes one drink his Camelbak with earnest, oftentimes refilling half way through the day.   The underbrush is starting to turn a little yellow, the bees are coming out in full force, and the Huckleberries are ripening. 

 

We moved camp to the very Northwest corner of the Colville Reservation about a week ago.   It was a very gorgeous drive with large cedar trees lining the dirt road, awesome granite cliff faces, and Hall Creek running along the south side of the drive.

With every 100’ of gained elevation, it looked, smelled, and even really felt like I was back home.  If I didn’t know where I was, I would have thought I was 2 miles south of Canada at the tip of the panhandle of Idaho on my way to skinny dipping at American Falls. 

 

After setting up camp at what could have been the now defunct Shoe Tree, I went to work.  After an hour of very thick brush, I found my first ripe huckleberries of the season.  Knowing that a co-worker was a few hundred feet away hard at work, I yelled out ‘HUCKLEBERRIES!!!!’  and started getting my fingertips and lips purple with the fresh berries.  Since I had been working everyday for about a week and a half, I decided to look for more of those sweet hucks and took the day off to enjoy this new(although it felt like I’d been there for years) wilderness.  In about an hour, I picked enough huckleberries to last me(and the guys in camp, who were elated upon seeing the beauties) until today(about a week).  

 All of this huckleberry business got me thinking…I used to HATE going picking for those gorgeous, pleasurable, and tart orbs that bears, and humans alike, love for their taste and health benefits.  ‘Mommio’ used to tell me before bed at the Lake that I HAD to go berry picking with her in the morning, ‘bright and early, Timmer.’  GUHHHH, ‘why me? I don’t even like those nasty things!’ I’d say, as there was always my brother and ‘Daddio’ to go as well…I guess she liked my company better I’d like to think.   For a young kid at the Lake with so many fun things to do on or around the water, the last thing I wanted to do was go out in the woods to rummage around looking for gross huckleberries.  Somehow she’d get me to go out with her and our chocolate lab Tess to pick away at her secret spots anyway.  Tess loved it:  being off leash, running around, and actually eating the huckleberries right off the bush that you were picking, ‘GET OUTTA HERE, TESS!  This is MY patch!’   

 After years of despising picking with Mom, I finally started getting the itch.  It went from asking Mom if’ that was enough yet?’ (NOPE!, another GALLON!) to ‘ I found a JACKPOT!’   Soon enough I would be craving huckleberry pies, my Mom’s wonderful huckleberry bread with her homemade jams, and getting a Daiquiri at one of the many establishments around Priest Lake. 

 

I now have my own ‘secret’ huckleberry spots all around Priest Lake that I won’t tell anyone about(for if I did that, I’d have to kill them), and now have a new spot in the Colville Wilderness that will always be mine.  Huckleberries also got me to thinking:  I am definitely taking my daughter picking next week, whether she likes it or not! 

 

Anyway, after a wonderful day off to collect and enjoy myself, the rains came pouring down up in the mountains like a monsoon and I was very glad that I chose wisely and let the Huckleberry madness take over for a day.