My Sweet Huckleberry

Reader Contribution by Sherry Leverich Tucker
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Yesterday I had a sweet encounter with a tiny blue pebble with lovely flavor. Little huckleberries are wild blueberries that can be found on rocky hilltops. They like to grow in the well-drained soil of this terrain, and also thrive growing under pine trees, as I assume they like acidic soil like their more cultivated blueberry cousin.

We do not have any huckleberries growing on our property. We do have rolling hills, but not quite the rugged landscape that they seem to prefer, though we do have wild blackberries and gooseberries. Huckleberries are a little rarer around here, so it is a treat to find a patch and take advantage of this culinary treat.

My mom and I, along with the boys, found ourselves down in northwest Arkansas yesterday visiting a family cemetery where my father and others from his family are buried. It is nestled in the hilly terrain near the War Eagle area East of Rogers where Beaver Lake runs. When first married my mom and dad had a farm near this area. I asked mom if we could stop where she had once picked huckleberries 40 years earlier and see if we could find any. To our delight there were bushes all along the roadside filled with the just ripening crop of huckleberries.

My mom and I seem to be genetically inclined to be persistent gatherers. It is like instinct pulling us to always forage and store-up any

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