“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” – Albert Camus
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Harvest-time is upon us with the bounty from our gardens, fresh eats from local farmer's markets and an abundance of grapes from Lake County's prized vineyards.
Also in season are the many wild edibles that abound in our county, such as pine nuts, chokecherry, rose hips and, of course, blackberries.
There is nothing like blackberrying on a fine autumn morning, when the newborn sun is shining and the air is still and pristine.
Sampling the jewel-toned fruit is a must while you pick. The inevitable pin-pricks and scrapes against their thorny brambles is the price you pay for a juicy bucketful of blackberry jam-to-be.
As poet Seamus Heaney says in an excerpt from his poem, “Blackberry-Picking”:
“For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue ...”
The Yuki Indian name for blackberry was “Gol-le.” American Indians made good use of fresh blackberries in season, as well as preserving them by drying for winter use.
Quoting from my book on Anderson Marsh, “The ground creeping blackberry was indigenous to this area. The Himalayan blackberry, brought by a botanist to Massachusetts' Boston Botanical Gardens in 1870, is prevalent now, having 'escaped' from the botanical gardens. By 1900 it took over western Washington. By 1940 it had become a pest in the Clear Lake area. The coastal Pomoans, known to us as the Kashaya Pomo Indians, believed that it was important that the berries not be eaten by pregnant women or, for that matter, the fathers-to-be. The Kashaya believed that their babies would be born dusky in color if berries were consumed during pregnancy.”
Although not a staple, delicate and fragrant wild roses, rosa californica, which are found in chaparral and woodlands of Lake County, once were used by American Indians.
A tea was concocted from its roots. Its fruit, or rose hips, was used as a jelly or tea as well. Pioneers enjoyed the wild rose's beauty, and also used it for a variety of ordinary illnesses. Throughout World War II the hips were made use of due to their high vitamin C content.
Pine nuts from various conifers are plentiful. The native gray pine which grows amongst oaks and manzanita plants produces seeds, or nuts which were a staple for Native Americans. Yuki Indians called the tree “Pol-cum ol.”
The gray pine is easily discernible by its spare needles which are long and gray-green in color. The tree produces a yellow sap-like substance which was once used medicinally by chewing, or combined with other ingredients into a medication for everything from burns to rheumatism. Pioneers used the needles to concoct a tea for medicinal purposes.
Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is an educator, potter, writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.” She also writes for NASA and JPL as one of their “Solar System Ambassadors.” She was selected “Lake County Teacher of the Year, 1998-99” by the Lake County Office of Education, and chosen as one of 10 state finalists the same year by the California Department of Education.