The Mulberry Caper

Spencerport, NY
43 12.00 N 077 48.10 W

The other day we saw some joggers on the path they appeared to be jumping up to catch branches on a tree and greedily eating berries they picked.  Berries from a 60 foot tree?  That's not what we're used to.  Anyhow, this morning Libby and I stopped along that same stretch, we hunted down and found that tree.  We too jumped up and caught berries.  They looked like blackberries.  We ate some.  Yummy, very sweet very good.  But what kind of berries are they.

Back on the boat, I did a little Internet research and found the answer -- mulberries.  According to the wikipedia article this must have been a granddaddy mulberry tree because the article says they get up to 49 feet tall.  It says that they are the national berry of Austrailia.  The Red Mulberry is native to eastern North America.

Libby attacks the tree with a boat hook and a bowl.

The price.  My purple hand.

The prize.  Yummy.

p.s. We are heading East again.  Looking at our Skipper Bob guide, the remaining stops, Lockport and Tonawanda both sound like dreary urban settings.  That's not appealing to us.   We don't get points for traveling far, only for having fun.

So how far West did we go?  It surprised me when I looked it up.  78 degrees west is a line of longitude that goes through Medina and also Wrightsville Beach, NC.   It is so easy, and wrong, to think of our migration up/down the coast as being just north/south.  In reality it is Northeast/Southwest.  Thus, this canal doesn't go very far West after all.