I'm fortunate in that there is a local park just across the road from where I live. It is a country park where you are invited by the local council to walk through woodland, grassland, wildflower meadows and open water. It's home to many varieties of birds, where the ducks, geese, and swans will come and greet you in the expectation that you might feed them. A local canal and river also runs through the park.
There is something else about this time of year on the park. It is fantastic for blackberry picking. From around July to the end of August there is a feast to be had, if you like blackberries that is. I do, as a healthy option for breakfast or in a smoothie, and they are free. They are just starting to ripen now, although the full on black ones are still hard to find, every day there are more and more.
I was doing a morning search when I heard a noise behind me. It was a dog out for its morning walk. “Come on Kevin” called the owner, “you don't want to be eating blackberries. He only wants to help. He probably thinks you are going to feed him.” A dog named Kevin? A few posts back I wrote of meeting a dog called Dave on a morning walk, and now here was a Kevin. Kevin did as he was told, and I continued in my blackberry hunt.
For the next six weeks or so, I will be grateful to nature for providing this free feast. By late August, I hope that maybe the blackberry season will somehow extend for a few weeks more, but it never does. Regardless of the weather, the blackberry bushes will have done their bit for the year. They will die off to return again next year when it will all start anew. I will be out, with or without the help of a dog named Kevin.
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