Huckleberry Picking in Idaho

First picture is a huckleberry plant on our place, but as you can see it's a little too reddish. They should be a purplish-blue color. We were invited by the neighbors to go up to the high mountains in Idaho on government land to hunt huckleberries. While they weren't plentiful or big there were many,many plants. It seems most the plants had already been picked or the bears had their fill!! Some of you may know that hunting areas are kept secret by most people as they can fetch as much as $40-45.00 a gallon!!! Personally, I think they're over rated... They are good in milkshakes though, but since I've never made anything else from them I'll reserve judgement. I've gotten a few new recipes I hope to try this year.

My long time friend, Vonne, is waving from the patch she is working on. Our group took a short lunch break, thankfully not too many flying critters were there.
The cleaning process is almost as labor intensive as the picking. Rinse, sort three times, used a blower on cool setting to dry off to prevent ice crystals. Then packaged them and froze between my Limoncello and Haagen Dazs! Humm, I see a milkshake in the near future...