Fruits of the forest. Crabapples, snowberries and raspberries. Waterproof felt pen and watercolour with watercolour pencil here and there.

We took our first walk outside the town today, on our own, along the Green Belt path that takes you on a picturesque tour of the river valley near the part of the town south of the river, known as Big Eddy.  The first thing we noticed was a small piece of bear scat – a little pile of cheery stones, nestled in a scattering of manure.  We were then scouting seriously for more signs, but we were out of luck. It was probably too hot for any self respecting bear to be out foraging. So we contented ourselves with searching out berries that bears might eat, and discovered that some of them were very tasty for humans too. There were wild raspberries, wild strawberries (not ready yet) and wild blackcurrants, as well as a berry that resembled and tasted like a small blueberry, but its leaf resembled a holly leaf. I didn’t think to pick a sprig and bring it back home, but I did find some crab apples and snowberries (do not eat, they are poisonous to humans, but they are supposed to be good for morning sickness, curing cuts and sores, shampoo and teething pains. Don’t take my word for it). The raspberries that I drew are actually from the garden at home, which we were instructed to pick rather than leave them for the bears to come and find. When nearly every house in Revelstoke has at least one tree groaning with fruit, it’s a little hard to deter bears from foraging in the township, but they aren’t often seen close to human habitation unless the food supply is too tempting.

21st century multitasking

Leo still needs plenty of cuddles to get him to sleep at night, but his mum has found ways of getting work done.