Blueberry Hunt

It was a little early in the blueberry season, but we were hopeful. It was also one of the few dry weeks we’ve had this summer, so the forest was relatively dry. A good opportunity for just hiking around in the forest and such.

Katy went blueberry picking often as a child. This terrain looks the same as Alaska. Blueberry bushes like the bogs. I use to take a gun for bear protection. I don’t see any firearms in these pictures!

The kids are picking blueberries on the side of the path.

That’s my awesome lady. <3

The flora really reminds me of Alaska.

One of my favorite things about Oslo was Nordmarka, and one of my favorite things about Norway in general was that people really made an effort to get out into nature, real wild nature like this (not just a manicured city park). The city trains came right up to the forest, buses took you to plenty of other places to hike and picnic, and the ferries took you out to a bunch of different islands in the harbor. It’s important to remember that old Norwegian adage, though, “there’s no bad weather, just bad clothing”.

Yes, that’s a shower curtain. It’s good to have a water-proof picnic blanket around here. This is our current favorite picnic clearing. It’s near enough the paths to be convenient, but not visible to passers-by.

I forgot to take any mid-picnic pictures, but it was a fine picnic of crackers and cheese with a thermos of tea and cake with cream and gathered blueberries for dessert.

Ruby fell off the side of the path, which (as you can see) was quite muddy. She’s still in the bad habit of just laying on the ground in shock after she’s fallen instead of picking herself up. So her pants and shirt had a good chance to soak up a lot of mud and cold water.

Now that’s a sad face.

Ruby’s still in her muddy clothes because I thought it likely she’d fall again (either while changing her clothes, or soon thereafter) so we waited until we were on the other side of the boardwalk. After she got over the shock of falling, the wet clothes didn’t seem to bother her that much.