Blackberries, Books, Beaches and Blogs

Blogging has been at the top of my daily "to do" list for the past two weeks.  I have at least a dozen hikes to blog about - many of them new hikes to me and therefore to the blog -  and I have hundreds of photos to edit.  But instead, life intervenes and sitting at the computer takes a low priority.

For one thing, it's blackberry season!  Ever since I was a little girl picking blackberries from the bushes around town with my mom, I have loved blackberries.  Not those perfectly-formed, totally tasteless commercial ones you buy in a store at $5.00 for about a cup of about-to-go-moldy berries -- I'm talking about wild blackberries for which your arms and legs get scratched, your clothes get snagged, and your fingers get stained.  My neighbour and I found acres of them, free for the taking, just a few minutes from home.

So, of course, in addition to downing a big bowl of fresh blackberries with frozen yogurt, I then made blackberry muffins and blackberry scones, and spread the rest of the berries on a cookie sheet to freeze prior to bagging them for used later.

Blackberry lemon streusel  muffins

All that blackberry work left me too tired to blog, so I sat in my favourite chair and picked up a book.  A few days ago I called our local independent new-and-used bookstore in search of a second-hand copy of a hiking book I wanted.  They had it.  I arranged to pick it up from their shop which follows strict covid protocol. It was $7.00.  Of course, while there they invited me to look around and soon I had four more books that I just HAD to purchase - a mix of new and used.

Our library had been closed due to  Covid, and while it had recently partially re-opened for take-out service from a table outdoors, I'm more of a browser-through-the-stacks which isn't yet an option.  But as fate would have it, the day after I bought five books, the library emailed to let me know that two items I had requested back in the pre-covid days were now available and waiting for me to pick up. I stayed up very late last night reading "The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek".  I highly recommend it!

And then there is our usual Parksville pleasure - wading in the water along miles of sandy shores.  That certainly takes priority to sitting at a computer.  We're very fortunate that even during tourist time there are areas of beach that never get crowded.  Mags and I can always find somewhere to go when the tide is low.

And who wouldn't want to spend time on the beach, among herons and eagles and gulls, I munching my blackberry muffin and them munching their.....seafood?

We stroll through the surf and tidal pools, admiring seastars and crabs and shellfish.  A clam on its side, half buried in the sand, wrapped in a string of seaweed reminds me of a locket I once owned.

I watch some  kayakers paddling with the geese,

and gaze meditatively out to sea,  past fishing boats and hazy islands to the mountains beyond.

I love the reflections in pools of still water,

and Maggie, of course, is in her element, climbing every large rock to claim her turf - just look how happy and proud she is!

I think this seagull is mimicking her.

And the heron may be mimicking me:

Waves lapping, tides ebb and flow,  rippling the sand beneath to create a beautiful quilt-like image.  Nature is such a wonderful artist:

So, no, I'm not sitting at the computer for more than a few minutes a day.  I'm not editing photos when I could be at the beach...or reading on the patio....or picking and eating blackberries....or exploring new trails.   But I'll be back again soon. If life doesn't intervene.

Now it's time to grab another blackberry muffin and my book and a certain sheltie and head to the beach.  Us gals just wanna have fun.