Tag Archive | juniper berries

Wild Friends

Feb12

First thing this morning, Wren dashed outside to greet one of her deer friends under the apricot tree, in a light dusting of overnight snow. It was just over ten degrees. We didn’t stay out long.

But later in the morning we all took a short walk around the west woods to examine the tree trimming our neighbor kindly did for us yesterday. He cut some downed limbs into fence posts and firewood, cut down and up another dying juniper that threatened the driveway, and dragged the brush into big piles for the next chipper trip. Wren and Topaz checked out a good-sized burrow which I’d seen before.

Topaz got a little too close for my comfort, but oddly I trusted her more to not get in trouble than if Wren had done the same thing. I am pretty sure it’s a rock squirrel burrow because the hole looks too small for a badger, but it’s possible… and I wouldn’t want either of them getting dragged in by a fierce predator.

Not far from the burrow, I saw this cache of juniper berries, seemingly excavated from inside the old log. Though my curiosity flickered, I don’t need to know all about it and so I simply appreciated another sign of a wild friend, snapped a picture, and walked on. By then my fingertips were getting pretty cold, so we aimed for home.

Where I warmed up my hands, dug into my own food cache, and made another superb cheese sandwich: on homemade light rye with mayo, mustard, havarti, romaine, potato chips, and just a small spread of some mediocre blueberry jam, which though inadequate for toast is perfect for a touch of sweetness in a sandwich. I was grateful to wake up smiling this morning from a silly dream about very weak coffee that actually tasted pretty good, and ease into another day of mindfulness, good work, contemplation, and gratitude.

Berries

Aug25

I’m grateful for berries. These bright berries on the blueleaf honeysuckle, Lonicera korolkowii provide food for birds from now throughout winter, ripe or dried in situ. This gorgeous bush is native to ‘The Mountains of Central Asia,’ which I just learned is a very specific geographical ecosystem, also home to half the world’s wild snow leopards. The Mountains of Central Asia is a biodiversity hotspot consisting of two major mountain ranges which extend among six countries, including Afghanistan. I’m grateful that this plant thrives in our climate and is a beneficial habitat shrub and not an invasive species.

Little purple berries on New Mexico Foresteria also feed birds, in particular the Townsend’s solitaire which I have seen yearly in this shrub. Not technically berries, but I’m not being technical. They look like berries, they feed like berries–but they taste pretty awful to me. Anyway, the flowers are full of tiny native bees in spring, and abundant berries in late summer also provide bounty for wildlife. I’m grateful to have this buffet in my landscape.

Some limbs on some of the junipers are laden with ripe juniper berries. Again, pseudo-berries, but berries is what we call them. Most of my dogs have nibbled them off the ground when they’re plentiful, with gusto; they were a food fad a few years ago; they feed wildlife; they are purported to have health benefits and healing properties; and they flavor gin. I’m grateful for juniper berries in the yarden.

I’m grateful for raspberries! I’m grateful that I savored and saved last summer’s gift of a gallon raspberries, and still have some left this summer, since the crop was paltry in this drought. Nurturing a new cluster of water kefir grains, I splurged and put a few frozen raspberries in to flavor yesterday’s decanted batch. Tomorrow, I’ll be grateful for a healthy, fermented raspberry soda. Actual berries or illusory facsimiles, I’m grateful for berries: fruits of the labors of bees and bushes.