Berries near cache

[Andronicus]

A recent thread about micros got me thinking. We should list caches with berries nearby to facilitate easyer berry caching

 

Here is a quick list of ones I have found

 

Cosmic Cache - saskatoon berries

Blueberry Patch - blueberries

Valleyview Park - Calgary Parks 100 - saskatoon berries

 

Maybe GS could add a berry attribute icon.

[+The Blorenges]

I've never heard of saskatoon berries so I had to google them... and came up with this info which I thought was quite amusing...

"In 2004, a Canadian company called Prairie Land tried to sneak Saskatoon Berries into the UK without going through the usual reviews required by the Food Standards Association (FSA), by saying the berries were equivalent to blueberries. The berries were available on store shelves for about 3 months, before the importers were caught out around May of that year by some sharp-witted inspector who no doubt tasted the berries and perhaps compared scientific names. The review requirements state that any new foods introduced into the European Union (EU) need to undergo testing to ensure they are safe for consumers. Foods being consumed within the EU prior to 1997 are grandfathered and given exemption to this. Saskatoon Berries didn't meet this requirement which would have supplied European-based proof that they were "safe to eat" and so were banned from sale.

 

Canadians, who at one point were on the verge of banning bottles of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce from store shelves because it didn't have French on the label, were apoplectic at being hoisted on their own petard by someone else's food bureaucrats. The British managed by the end of 2004, however, to mollify the Canadians by finding evidence of Saskatoon Berry consumption in Finland in 1996, thus making the berries eligible for grandfathering. The berries were relaunched in the UK with a ceremony held at Canada House in London in June 2005."

 

If they were relaunched I think they must've sunk fairly quickly because I've never seen them for sale over here!

 

MrsB

[+briansnat]

We'd have to list about 90 percent of the caches in northern NJ. Wild berries are all over the place here. Makes for some delicious cache hunts this time of the year.

[knowschad]

Maybe GS could add a berry attribute icon.

You should add that to the Feedback site. I'm sure TPTB would think it was a berry good idea.

 

Re: Saskatoon berries... I've heard of them as Service berries, and they look like what I know of as "sugar plums" from when I was a lad.

[+roziecakes]

I agree! Lots of yummy wild blackberries (and blackberries in my yard...) in Oregon! By the way, if any Oregonian cachers want to pick blackberries; we have WAY more than we can use, send me an email!

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Growing up in Northern California (Mendocino County) I've seen tons of berries, mostly blackberries but a few raspberries and I once spent a week at "camp" on a friend of my aunts that had a berry garden with blackberries, raspberries. dewberries loganberries, and ollalieberries, I picked buckets of them. In upstate NY I mostly see raspberries and a few blackberries (but not nearly as good as the ones in NorCal) and I once camped on an island in the Adirondacks that was covered in blueberries.

 

Some of the most unusual berries I've seen were when I visited Newfoundland several years ago. Blueberries, cranberries, and raspberries were fairly common but I also saw partridge berries (looks like a blueberry, only red) and an unusual berry called a cloudberry.

 

A couple of weeks ago when I was out in California I picked a bunch of berries while finding a cache called Woodson Bridge. Easily the best combination of a great cache and berry picking is one called Patty's Mt. Battie near Camden, ME. The view from the parking lot (about .15 of a mile from the cache) is spectacular, the cache is large and usually well stocked, and there are wild blueberries all over the place. Unfortunately it looks like the cache might be missing and is currently disabled. I hope that a new container is place as it's a very old cache (June 2001) and is in a spectacular spot.

 

All that said, I doubt that a berry attribute would ever fly since, at last from what I've seen, berries are very seasonal. In some cases, one might only be able to find ripe fruit 1-2 weeks out of the year.

[+Quossum]

A lot of the caches around here have dewberries or muscadine grapes nearby. Yummy!

 

--Q

[+DragonsWest]

Ripe Logan Berries by the handful at GC233CF Mt. Madonna Park Boundary - West

[+succotash]

Here's an excerpt from a July 7th log on one of our caches:

 

"This is a wonderful area for geocaching and just strolling along the trails. Lots to see and abundant fresh ripe fruit for the picking. (Today I ate my fill of lowbush blueberries and huckleberries, but the remains of blackberries are evident and they have several fig trees near the parking that should be ripe in the next week or so for future cachers.)"

 

Blueberries, huckleberries, and figs!

[7rxc]

Lots of caches with edible berries (in season of course) around here... of course they come complete with guardians who are quite possesive at times and don't like to share... if they do, it's because THEY are letting YOU fatten up a bit... Oh yes... THEY come in shades of brown and black... both black bears and Grizzlies.

 

I think the correct attribute would be a pair... berries and bears!

 

Doug 7rxc

[+Harry Dolphin]

We'd have to list about 90 percent of the caches in northern NJ. Wild berries are all over the place here. Makes for some delicious cache hunts this time of the year.

 

August is getting a bit late for berries in Jersey. July, though, I was stuffing my snout with blackberres, blueberries, raspberries and wineberries! YUM!! Today, all I had was trees throwing acorns at me! I'm not a bear. I don't eat acorns! But, YES!! I enjoyed caching/eating berries in July!

[Luckless]

Just make sure you knnow what you're eating. Poke berries are getting ripe here and you don't want to eat them- I believe they are poisonous.

[+JesandTodd]

That would be an awesome attribute! I don't think I've ever seen a berry out in the wild.

 

Oh, wait. 2 decades ago we had mulberries growing here. Now they are banned because so many people are allergic to them.

 

Seriously, banned trees in Az.... Unbelievable...

 

Anyhow, you'd have to climb the tree to get that fruit. Nothing on bushes or easily available.

I'd love to cache and see that!

Edited August 7, 2010 by JesandTodd

[+TeamEpik]

I've never heard of saskatoon berries so I had to google them... and came up with this info which I thought was quite amusing...

"In 2004, a Canadian company called Prairie Land tried to sneak Saskatoon Berries into the UK without going through the usual reviews required by the Food Standards Association (FSA), by saying the berries were equivalent to blueberries. The berries were available on store shelves for about 3 months, before the importers were caught out around May of that year by some sharp-witted inspector who no doubt tasted the berries and perhaps compared scientific names. The review requirements state that any new foods introduced into the European Union (EU) need to undergo testing to ensure they are safe for consumers. Foods being consumed within the EU prior to 1997 are grandfathered and given exemption to this. Saskatoon Berries didn't meet this requirement which would have supplied European-based proof that they were "safe to eat" and so were banned from sale.

 

Canadians, who at one point were on the verge of banning bottles of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce from store shelves because it didn't have French on the label, were apoplectic at being hoisted on their own petard by someone else's food bureaucrats. The British managed by the end of 2004, however, to mollify the Canadians by finding evidence of Saskatoon Berry consumption in Finland in 1996, thus making the berries eligible for grandfathering. The berries were relaunched in the UK with a ceremony held at Canada House in London in June 2005."

 

If they were relaunched I think they must've sunk fairly quickly because I've never seen them for sale over here!

 

MrsB

mmmm I love saskatoon berries . They make great Jam .

[+cerberus1]

Agree with Harry Dolphin and Briansnat...

Last week in June to just last week produced a great crop of berries this year.

CJ and I pigged out on HUGE blackcaps last week at Francis E.Walter dam in Luzerne County (hit a "5" cache there), but the blueberries all but dried up.

From North Jersey to NE PA, every area not developed usually has blueberries somewhere on it.

Funny though, the higher North and West you go in PA, there's more huckleberries than blueberries.

We leave notes when we gorge on the local crop, in case others are lookin' for some too, but one month or so out of the year probably wouldn't warrant an attribute.

[+drfred]

Just make sure you knnow what you're eating. Poke berries are getting ripe here and you don't want to eat them- I believe they are poisonous.

 

Took care of a lady in the ICU a few weeks ago who got herself there eating poke salit...

 

Yes, it is poisonous. No, cooking 3 times does not get rid of the poison. And yes, the berries themselves are one of the most toxic parts of the plant.

[+EscapeFromFlatland]

Oregon would have lots of Marion Berry caches with marionberries in the rural areas and Marion Berry caches with cocaine in the urban areas.

 

On a serious note: the invasive blackberries out here have been delicious for the last 65 caches.

Edited August 7, 2010 by bramasoleiowa

[+Team Shiney]

This is a note posted on one of my caches: "This one will have to wait till winter. Deep winter. To far in the woods to go looking for it in summer. Saw Black berries where there are black berries there are rattle snakes."

 

Me and the kid have been known to return to some caches later with pails to pick blackberries. I do understand the fear of snakes though. I have had snakes hang out under my blueberries to catch the birds. Nets do not keep the birds away well, but a hognose snake can really get twisted up in a net.

[+EscapeFromFlatland]

That would be an awesome attribute! I don't think I've ever seen a berry out in the wild.

 

Oh, wait. 2 decades ago we had mulberries growing here. Now they are banned because so many people are allergic to them.

 

Seriously, banned trees in Az.... Unbelievable...

 

Anyhow, you'd have to climb the tree to get that fruit. Nothing on bushes or easily available.

I'd love to cache and see that!

 

I thought it was banned because its an invasive species?

[+EScout]

Berry Picking Waymark

 

Visit or log your patch at the Waymark about this subject.

[Andronicus]

Berry Picking Waymark

 

Visit or log your patch at the Waymark about this subject.

Dude, I don't want to share my patch with all 'Those' people.

[+DragonsWest]

Visited Quartz o' Berries on Sunday. Had I my long trousers I could have picked quarts of Blackberries! Zounds!

 

New candidate for my most unusual item found while geocaching on the way here - a switchblade.

 

It's going to be cleaned up then placed at the bottom of my toolbox. Geez what a vicious thing to leave on a trail, or even to have.

[ashenflowers]

I'd also like to pipe in about poisonous berries. I took a local Edible and Medicinal Plants class, and not that that makes me an expert, but I did learn that MANY wild berries are very poisonous. If you don't know what the berry is DON'T eat it.

 

This has been a PSA from ashenflowers.

[+WRITE SHOP ROBERT]

That would be an awesome attribute! I don't think I've ever seen a berry out in the wild.

 

Oh, wait. 2 decades ago we had mulberries growing here. Now they are banned because so many people are allergic to them.

 

Seriously, banned trees in Az.... Unbelievable...

 

Anyhow, you'd have to climb the tree to get that fruit. Nothing on bushes or easily available.

I'd love to cache and see that!

Yeah...but you have all that Cactus down there. Seriously, why stick to berries, wouldn't you want to include all edible plants? At that point you seriously run the risk of coaxing people to eat the wrong stuff(...Look honey, it has the edible plants Attribute, they must mean this stuff here...chokes to death on a mushroom)...Players can't even figure out how to sign logbooks, trade fairly, or log travelers...do you really want to deal with the stories of finding some dead poisoned Cacher on the trail? We don't need an attribute for every little thing...leave something to the fun of discovery.