My first expedition took me to some common areas of town. First I headed out to a large copse of trees a block from our local elementary school. There I found just a few berry producing plants, most of which were Common Buckthorn, a poisonous and invasive species. I did find, however, one Elderberry tree (at least, I'm 90% sure it's elderberry - I'm going back to verify this week). The fruits looked anywhere from green to purple black. Hopefully within a week I'll be able to harvest about 8 oz of fruit.
Next I went down to a large park by the river. Although the trees there included a number of berry producing plants, nothing could be identified for sure except for more Common Buckthorn. One plant is probably a grape, but given the sparsity of the fruits it's probably best to leave these plants alone.
The mosquitoes bit the heck out of me, especially around my shoulders and upper back. My hands and arms were okay because of the long sleeve shirt and gloves, but I'm going to need to get some insect repellent if I plan on doing this more than once or twice a month. That's what I'll be doing today in fact, in addition to scouting out a couple of locations for future adventures. Check back later for more.
