Kat and I took a spontaneous drive up the mountainside to Oak Glen this past Sunday, for berry pickin’! What a grand idea that was, and just an hour’s drive from home. We spotted wild berries along our favorite nature trail, but ended up at Snow Line Orchard for the actual picking. The charge was $13 for three empty plastic baskets, row upon row of raspberry bushes from which to pick, and one large, wild blackberry bush off by itself. I can tell you why the blackberry bush had its own space. Vicious thorns! The blackberries ended up mostly squished to juice as we tried to keep our arms from being ripped to shreds. They don’t come off the vines without a fight. I doubt we filled a quarter of one little basket with blackberries, while raspberries easily filled up the rest. There’s nothing quite like fresh, self-picked berries, especially in Southern California where orchards and fields have become increasingly rare, ploughed under for houses. ~SueBee (photos by SueBee)
SueBee and Kat 
We went berry picking earlier in the year. The jam is good.
Yum! Ouch! Yum! Ouch!
OUCH!!!
Delicious fruit. More tasty because you picked it yourselves 🙂
So true!