Keeping The "Native" In American ~
With Novels Of Contemporary Fiction
Links
  • Home
  • WIPs
  • Contact Me
  • Amazon & Kindle
  • Champagne Books
  • Wordpress Blog
  • Weebly Blog
  • Affiliations
    • Champagne Book Group
    • Indie Writers Network
    • Pacific NW Writers Assoc.
    • LinkedIn
    • Goodreads
  • Sites I Follow
  • Best of History
  • PoW Wows
  • Indian Country Today Media Network

You've Got To Be Quick!

6/1/2014

0 Comments

 
As the weather improves during the Spring and Summer, delicacies start to appear in the flora of Western Washington. Some of the earliest things to ripen are the strawberries and salmonberries (an orange raspberry-looking fruit). It's nice to be able to grab a handful of these treats and take in their freshness and flavor. It is a rite that has gone on for thousands of years.

I've noticed in old picto-graphs that there weren't many fat Natives and I think I know why. If you don't beat the birds and animals to the dinner bush, you're not going to get many berries to stuff in your waiting pie hole!

Why do I know this? A week and a half ago, I had a bush full of nice salmonberries at the edge of my stone patio. I mean there were so many berries that the bush was drooping almost to the ground. I picked a handful and, while not as sweet as raspberries, they still provided that nice kick-off to curing a lack of Spring tuning.

I was leaving most of them on the bush to ripen, since many hadn't quite gotten there yet. Yesterday I decided to try some more, but lo and behold there was nary a non-mangled or missing berry on the bush! The birds cleaned it off as if the berries had those pop-up indicators on turkeys that say they're done cooking! So much for my next handful of Spring finery.

All I can say is that I'm amazed that the Tribes survived with all of this competition for the food. No wonder they were all skinny in the pictures. It's a good thing that fast food chains have sprung up where the berries used to grow and the berries are imported into the grocery stores from around the world. It was hard enough to store up for winter as it was!



0 Comments

    Author

    My paternal Great Grandfather was full-blood Cherokee and his wife was full-blood Kickapoo. The rest of me is a Euro-mix.

    I retired from the Fire Department in 2005 and have been writing since 2009. I have four grown kids and a Grandson, plus twin Granddaughters born in January of 2014, which qualifies me for treatment of PTSD, I'm sure!

    Archives

    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013

    Categories

    All
    Adventure
    Air Force
    Arctic
    Asteroid
    Badger
    Bears
    Berries
    Bison
    Blackfeet
    Blackfoot
    Blog Tour
    Browning
    Bucket List
    Buffalo Hump
    Bush
    Champagne
    Children
    Chinese
    Community
    Conference
    Continental Divide
    Cut Bank
    Deadline
    Dinner
    Ear Tags
    Edit
    Eskimos
    Footwear
    Forms
    Germany
    Glacier
    Going To The Sun
    Going To The Sun Highwy
    Gold
    Grand Entry
    Grandpa
    Groundhog
    Heights
    Hibernation
    Hollow Point
    Horns
    Hunt
    ICU
    Indigenous
    Kitsap
    Lightning
    Lily
    Lore
    Maiden Voyage
    Meat
    Mocassins
    Mountain Ranges
    Naps
    North American Indian Days
    Piegan
    Pistol
    Pnwa
    Pow Wow
    Prairie
    Prairies
    Rain
    Readers
    Regalia
    Repairs
    Research
    Reviews
    Romania
    Seattle Center
    Sheep Eater
    Shoshone
    Skinny
    Snow
    Spring
    Thunder
    Time Warp
    Tour
    Travel
    Tribes
    Truck
    USFS
    Wedding
    Wilderness
    Winter
    Wishing
    World

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.