HUCKLEBERRIES!!!!

Kassi, Roxy and I went into the woods yesterday, way up in the woods (by Thomas Lake, by "the gorge") to pick huckleberries. We worked hard, but we had a great time! The weather was perfect, and there were tons of berries. They came off late this year and we were afraid we had missed the narrow window of opportunity! Leave it to Roxy to know, truly the "huckleberry queen" of Washington. For you Californians that have never heard of these (me until a few years ago when I met Roxy) they are about the size of a pea and the there are about 4 wild varieties that only grow at a certain elevation and are available only one month of the year. So they are a rarity here. This is the second year Kassi and I have gone with Roxy to pick. She is truly my very favorite "hippy chick" in the world! She is resilient, honest, extremely generous, incredibly hard working, fantastic friend, the nurse I would want taking care of me in the ICU ( I have made her promise), that would literally give you the shirt off her back,..and man,..she is tough! Kassi said she is adopting her as her aunt. She is crazy about her too. So we talked, laughed, (covered every topic from boyfriends, mothering, loving yourself, work, shooting bears, Christianity, who should be in charge of our ventilators on our death bed, our having our childrens permission to be potheads and lesbian (true), which Dr's we have had crushes on at some point,...lets just say the conversation got crazier as the day went on),...enjoyed the beautiful woods, ate enough berries to make us sick,and picked for a solid 8 hrs. Kassi and I together picked what Roxy picked all by herself. She gave us the picker seal of approval, but no way could we ever be as fast as she is. We ended up (me and Kassi) having picked about 3 gallons, and I made Roxy's muffin recipe with the leftover (non freezer ones) today. They are so good!
So today we washed and picked the leaves out of our harvest and bagged them up for future jam and baking! What a fun and exhausting day we had. Today (Sun) we are relaxing,...Kassi is tanning and reading, I am watching movies while folding laundry. Mark is building workbenches for his amplifier assembly.
And,..we have new neighbors. Cute as bugs!! 5 yr old twins that just started kindergarten and their 2 yr old brother (he is a baby, according to the sister). They came over to see our kittens, Ray, and the rabbit, and have definitely become our friends. Kassi, and Morgan (the 5 yr old girl twin) discussed how tough they (being girls) were and that sometimes it is still okay to cry. Lane (the 5 yr old boy) informed me that "you have a very nice path to go to your house, I really, really like it". The two yr old was just happy to come over and eat blackeberries off our bushes. They are very cute. Nice Mom and Dad too. So that is most of my weekend, back to the real world tomorrow. Whew.