Edible Invasives

Riding out highway 224 along the Clackamas River is one of the best ways to experience NW Oregon in late summer. I travelled this corridor in 2012 en route to forest camping.

Free refreshments were all along the road. I stopped often to pick sweet, sun-ripened blackberries.

A year later I travelled the route again, but vines that had supported fruit the year before were now just dead white bare branches, incapable of producing special regenerative berries.

Beans of the Summer

Scarlet runner beans are a peak summer vegetable with flashy red flowers and large, prolific pods. Immature pods are like a meaty green bean and the mature seeds can be used as a dry bean.

 

When immature, the beans are hot pink. Later on they develop dark speckles...

As they mature the pink darkens to purple, and even continues to deepen as the seeds age off the plant.

Last summer a trellis full of runner beans -- including scarlet and less colorful types -- fell over in my garden. I'd meant to save them for seed, but they weren't very dry when they fell. I shelled them and put them on a dehydrator.

 The treatment was too harsh, judging by the cracked seed coats.

Figuring the beans wouldn't store well and might not sprout at all, I rehydrated them in preparation for cooking.

But lots of them did sprout - go beans!

 Then I cooked and ate them.

After windy woods

Went for a walk a few days ago after a windy night in the urban forest.

Lots of material had been shook loose from the canopy. Including this nest:

Ivy is showing its winter colors.

While licorice fern stays a light green.

 

The sun shines briefly but brightly through the cold, open canopy.

So, this is my first attempt to layer a short exposure over a long exposure to create an image with more depth. It's just slightly unaligned.