Huckleberry Hunting

On Labor Day, my mom and I drove the boys up into the mountains for some good-old-fashioned huckleberry hunting.

Huckleberries, for those of you who don't know, are a native berry of our area. They are tiny purple bush berries with a fragrant scent and a deliciously sweet & unique taste.

After a rocky ride up the dirt roads to the top of the mountains, we parked our car and roamed the berry-bush-covered mountain-sides, hunting for Huckleberries.

I was raised in a family that made Huckleberry picking an annual autumn tradition, but by boys have never been, so I was eager to let them experience one of my favorite childhood pastimes.

While Nathan stayed glued to my side, I tried to pick as many of the purple berries as I could, but he just couldn't resist dipping into my berry bucket and snacking on handfuls of berries--faster than I could pick them. I tried to show him how to find the berries on his own, but what was the point when it was so much easier to eat what I had already found? Silly kid!

Trever and Maunya found their own patches to pick from and were much more successful at filling their buckets than me and my little guy.

I was so proud of Trever for resisting the urge to eat every berry. He did such a great job at filling up his little berry cup.

We spent a just a couple hours hunting for berries, before the boys had their fill of the sport and were ready to head home. But we all had a wonderful time and even managed to get home with a few berries still left in the bucket. haha.

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