Green Options

You could call Becky Lerner Oregon’s answer to “Survivorman” … only she’s not a man, and she hasn’t been left stranded in the middle of nowhere with nothing but her wits and a pocketknife to help her survive.

Nope. This “Wild Girl,” as she calls herself, is in the middle of a week-long adventure in which she’s eating only food she can forage or catch on the wild streets of Portland. She’s blogging about her experience at Culture Change.

For this Fourth of July, I chose to celebrate a day of independence by stressing out to prepare for a holiday party, nor by figuring out which fireworks show to go to, nor by basking in the presence of President Bush during his visit to Monticello here in Charlottesville.

No, for this Fourth of July, I tapped into the American spirit of freedom by going wild and getting out into the wild: I went out foraging for wild berries.

Luckily for me this was pretty easy, given the fact that I live in the country and have been walking by a seemingly endless stretch of wineberry bushes (and a few blackberry bushes) growing conveniently along the gravel drive. Oh, the tension of temptation has been building for so, so long now as I have watched the bushes form their little fuzzy pods, the pods pop open with the unripe berries peeping out, the berries growing redder and redder like little organic rubies building up their brilliance….

So on this day, at long last, I declared my independence from self-restraint and heroic patience by diving into the (thorny!) berry patches and going wild…and pickin’ pickin’ pickin’ away.