Sea buckthorn when there's no sea for miles.

The first time we went to the farmer's market, we stopped at the booth that sells sea buckthorn-based goods because what is a sea buckthorn.

(This is a sea buckthorn). We've never stopped at that booth again because the lady who runs it is the used-car-salesman of sea buckthorn. Sea buckthorn has, like, 1000x the vitamin C of oranges and more antioxidants than acai berries and is the best kept secret wonderfood, apparently. Every so often, I'll be like, Going to the market today, and Joel's like, Pick up some sea buckthorn, and then we both laugh.

ANYway. After our trip to the strawberry ranch, I was looking for other u-picks around town and LOLOLOL you can u-pick sea buckthorn right here in Saskatoon. They're probably going to be, like, $30/lb, we said. They're probably going to taste awful, like, you probably can't even eat them raw. This is going to be ridiculous. We should definitely do it.

So last Friday I phoned to see if the sea buckthorns were ripe yet, and when we should come in. I dunno, 6 am? says the voice on the phone. ...That's a little early, I say. We have young kids, we were hoping to just kind of make a morning adventure of it. Ok, I'll leave the gate open, he says. Um, I say. I'm just joking, he says.

I don't even. Can we come by on Sunday, around 9? Sure thing, he says. Have you ever picked sea buckthorn, he says? Because you might want to just cut off the boughs, and throw them in the freezer, and then when they're frozen, you can pick the berries off. This is a weird conversation, I think to myself. See you Sunday.

So we get there, and Joel talks to the guys. Apparently, despite the tropical appearance, sea buckthorn is like the Saskatchewaniest of all berries, because you usually wait until it's -20 out and the berries are frozen, and then you just go and, like, POP them off.

Because they're fragile, and hard to get off without just smooshing them. So we did as recommended and just broke off a couple of likely-looking boughs.

Eleanor is not a good berry picker, but she is an EXCELLENT berry-picking companion because she just, like, tears up and down the rows, shrieking gleefully, and then calling you because she's found a bush with 'thousands and thousands and MILLIONS of berries.'

And spends the next ten minutes stuffing grasses into her pockets. Look at my grasses! Some in here! Some over here!

Geneva is still very needful to be touching me if we are somewhere weird. That backpack was the best $60 I've spent all year.

The berries are TART as HELL, you eat one and you're like, *phew* and then a few minutes later, you're like, Hey that was pretty good I should eat another one, and then you DO and *sour face* and you never learn because they're so pretty. They are probably going to end up as jam, let's be honest.

Add this to the adventure pile.