Yes, that is a fish bucket on my backpack. Yes, some folks call them fish boxes.  Yes, I did pick berries with a backpack and fish bucket/box on my back. Yes, I did wonder how I ended up in that situation. You see, there is this “beach”. Actually, more like a cove, Actually, more like a turn in the coast line. It’s a magnet for “beach bounty” as we call it, free stuff that washes up out of the sea. Today’s find, while we were out on a training hike, was a fish box. We love fish buckets for the garden (we currently grow strawberries in them). Never letting the fact that the car was over 4 kilometres away and that we’d planned to pick “Chuckly Pears” or Saskatoon Berries on the way back, deter us, we found a way to attach our latest find to my backpack. Marian was kind enough to do enough strapping so the fish bucket wouldn’t tip forward and whack me in the head whenever I leaned forward…and lean forward I did, every time I spotted a ripe blueberry, crackerberry, crow berry, chuckly pear, or raspberry.

Three hours and 10,000 or so steps later when we reached the car, with 3 litres of chuckly pears and a belly full of blueberries, I was wonderfully beat-out. Tired. Feet aching. Legs ready to sit. A new fish box in the fleet and an another training session in the bag. All good…especially when other hikers seemed to pass by with nary a glance at my very “interesting” backpack.