sea buckthorn

a slow morning after a late night.  a morning of building... 

and an early afternoon of building too...

we talk and talk and finally follow through with the idea that we will go back to the area of an earlier walk this week in order to pick some sea buckthorn berries (or sea berries or, in danish, havtorn = sea thorn).  it was only on that earlier walk that we'd learned they were edible, and then yesterday, greg (who wasn't on the walk) just happened to pick up some havtorn juice for last night's dinner and so it was decided-- we would pick some and make our own juice.  at the very least, it would get us out of the house. (well, greg ran this morning, so i shouldn't say he was housebound.)

(a foggy day...)

if you look up sea buckthorn you might see that it provides 10x more vitamin c than oranges.  i would believe this.  eating five or six at a time (you wouldn't dare eat more in one handful) is like eating the sourest lemon. it is apparently a super berry in the good-for-you sense.  

you might also read that harvesting the berries is difficult.  this is true.

perhaps we were a little ambitious bringing our largest pot with us...

this is what we got before greg and the boys gave up... about ten minutes or so of harvesting.


i kept on for another 15 minutes or so...

i still couldn't cover up the bottom of the pot.  it takes more than a modest effort to reap the large profits of sea berries.  

but they are everywhere in this forest...

ah, and there is the family...

fall colors are muted in denmark.  it doesn't help that you're not putting them in front of a deep blue sky for contrast.  if you don't stop to think about it, you could pass by the changing leaves without notice.  they don't jump out at you.  they are not impossible to miss.

and i think about how there isn't any fall red-- in this forest, at least.

and then i see this little one...

and of course red doesn't have to show up in the form of leaves...


eventually, we go back home.  well, william and i go to the farm store to pick up a few carrots, some salt, some cornmeal, dry beans, and soap.  all of it, save for the soap, is intended for the night's meal, but i realize that cooking the beans from scratch will turn dinner into a very late affair, so i take some frozen beans out of the freezer-- white and pinto-- and some chicken broth, frozen from the last book club meal i made, as well as some frozen mushroom broth-- and add carrots and onions (after many minutes trying to unfreeze all the frozen parts to get them into the pot), some bay leaves and salt and eventually blend it all up into a pureed bean soup.  that, with corn bread and kale, and i say out loud at dinner, "i would call this meal a hit."  henry, who's been playing a bit too much 'battleship' lately promptly responds, "and i would call it a miss."  but he eats all of his soup and plenty of cornbread (and one kale leaf) so-- i would still call it a hit.