foraging spring fruit

My urban scavenging is taking many forms these days (dumpster dives, roadside finds, pecans in the park) and as of Monday it has expanded further... berry picking! It definitely pays off to be the girl who walks and bikes everywhere because I notice all of these cool things! I was walking to post office on Monday (a beautiful, sunny day) and I took a different route to avoid the tornado chaos. This route just happens to skirt a large, heavily wooded park. As I walked along I noticed a bunch of wild berries growing in the woods all along the way! I picked a few of the ripe ones (leaving most of the little woodland creatures to enjoy) and took a couple of leaves so that I could come back to identify the plants properly before I ate them.

After I verified that they are, indeed, wild blackberries and huckleberries I ate them as a delicious snack! I'm heading back that way today and plan to check on the crop. Foraging is becoming one of my new favorite hobbies... I need to look for a book to take with me when I walk to help me identify all of these awesome plants on the spot (if anyone has any recommendations, I'd love to hear them!).