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a homeschooling mom of four who used to blog about food, has a book about sourdough, and who is now walking through the grief of losing my dad.
Hi, I'm Kels!

The Best Sourdough Glazed Donuts

Harvest season is rearing its ugly head around here, and life for this farm wife is getting hectic! I have always loved to put food away for the winter.  It means a lot of sacrifice during the summer/early fall, but I love the satisfaction of knowing my family will have food in the winter that I put away for super cheap! My goal this summer is to put up everything I can to cut my grocery bills this winter. Lately I have been using every spare minute I have to pick berries. 
I grew up in Southern Alberta, Canada. Every summer my family went camping for two weeks (at least). While out in the wilderness, we would pick Saskatoon berries by the handful and eat them. It was so fun to have berries we could actually eat, right there in nature! Fast forward to a few months ago when my mom was visiting us on the farm . . . she went for a ride with my husband to look around (I was busy feeding babies, I’m sure). When they got back, she exclaimed, “Kels, did you know this farm is crawling with Saskatoons?” WHAT?!?!? Where? I had NO clue, but as soon as she showed me all of the flowering bushes, I was in awe. I could not believe that I have been married to my husband and been to this farm for 8 years, and I had no idea that there were so many Saskatoon berries here. Apparently in Idaho they are known as Service berries, and upon further research I found they are also known as June berries. My husband’s family probably thought I was crazy with how excited I was, and his dad was skeptical that I would find them the same . . . but they were! They have never eaten them!!! 
For the past two weeks I have been picking and picking and PICKING Saskatoon berries and freezing them for my smoothies. I buy frozen blueberries all the time for smoothies, and now I don’t have to! I could not have been more thrilled with this find. Even if I hired a crew of people, I could never pick all of the berries that are within minutes of my house. All of the ones I’ve picked I have just walked right over to, they are right beside the farm buildings. It’s been awesome. They are a mild berry, more mild and less sweet than blueberries, with a seed in the middle that tastes like almonds. 
Another great thing about Saskatoons is that they are SO incredibly good for you . . . check out the information in the following chart and see for yourself:
Per 100g Saskatoon berries Blueberries Strawberries Raspberries
Energy 84.84 Ca 51 Ca 37 Ca 49 Ca
Protein 1.33 g .42 g .7 g .91 g
Carbohydrate 18.49 g 12.17 g 8.4 g 11.57 g
Total Lipid (fat) .49 g .64 g .5 g .55 g
Total Fiber 5.93 g 2.7 g 1.3 g 4.9 g
Vitamin C 3.55 mg 2.5 mg 59 mg 25 mg
Iron .96 mg .18 mg 1 mg .75 mg
Potassium 162.12 mg 54 mg 21 mg 152 mg
Vitamin A 35.68 IU 100 IU 27 IU 130 IU
Isn’t that incredible? And the best part is, I filled my freezer with these babies, for FREE!!! The Canadian Food Board is trying to get them labeled as a super food. That’s pretty darn cool.
 My little picking buddy

We also have a raspberry patch in our yard that we’ve been picking from. The harvest from them hasn’t been as good as years past, but still enough for me to freeze some every other day or so. I haven’t gotten enough to make a batch of jam, but with all of the strawberry jam I have now, I think we’ll be okay. My girls also eat these like crazy, so there isn’t much left after a picking!

My most recent and exciting find are CURRANTS! Our friends from church were over the other night and said they’d been out picking currants. I have read about and seen recipes using currants a lot, but I hadn’t ever actually tried them before. They got me some to try, and they were good! A little tart, but yummy. The next evening I drove down the road about five minutes to where they told me to find them. I was overwhelmed with the bounty before me. That might seem cheesy, but I was getting a little emotional, just looking around at all of the amazing currants before me. It felt amazing to be there all alone on a quiet evening, gathering food that would in some way feed my family. I took my 5 year old with me the next night and she exclaimed, “Mommy, why did God plant these berries in nature?!?!?” I love her. It was a great teaching moment and we had a good discussion. We picked as many as we could and had a fun time together, just the two of us.

We found red, black, and orange currants. Black currants are a super fruit. The list of benefits they offer is too long to even try and condense. If you want to read more about them, just google it. You will be overwhelmed. There were tons of them, it was BEAUTIFUL to see, all of those gorgeous colored fruits hanging in little clusters from the trees. Beautiful. I had to do some reading on what I could use them for and decided to try my hand at jelly. I will do a separate post on that later, but it was fun to do! I want to go back for more so that I can dry some. They can be used in pancakes, scones, granola, etc.

I’ve been busy busy and loving it. My lack of posting shows that I’ve been preoccupied, but I wanted to post so that those who live close to me might take advantage of a little foraging this season too! I encourage you to get outside, see what is around you, and find some treasures nearby. There’s nothing quite like getting free food from the wild. Next up, chokecherries, which will be ready in just a couple of days and are right beside my house as well!

Comments +

  1. Caylee says:

    That is totally awesome!!

  2. AKutarna says:

    Amazing! I wish I had all this abundance where I live!

  3. ec says:

    you live in paradise.

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about me

Hey, I'm Kels!

a homeschooling mom of four who used to blog about food, has a book about sourdough, and who is now walking through the grief of losing my dad.

I have lots of recipes and resources, but now it's just about me being real, walking through the messy and beautiful parts of life.

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