66,000,000 Pounds

There are several things that make up for the rain, wind, and dark days now upon us here in Whatcom County, and one of the best is that raspberries grow well here and we eat pounds and pounds of them every summer.

The cumulative weight of all the red raspberries harvested in our county this year, including the one pictured here, was 66.3 million pounds -- a 22 percent increase over the 2010 crop. (66,000,000 pounds equals nearly 30,000,000 kilograms.)

The Bellingham Herald, our local newspaper, further noted in today's issue that our county's record-breaking raspberry crop was nearly 92 percent of Washington state's 77.2 million pound total for 2011. Trailing far behind were British Columbia (22.5 million pounds) and Oregon (almost 5 million pounds).

And here's another interesting fact if you are still reading this (I'd understand if you weren't, you probably have many more interesting things to do) -- the cold spring this year meant fewer pests, so not as many spotted wing drosophilia (also known as the red-eyed vinegar fly) or brown mamorated stink bugs threatened our luscious berries. (Knowing how keen blippers are to increase their knowledge about just about everything, I've thoughtfully provided photos of these bugs here so you can describe them to your friends and family in conversational lulls this weekend. And just in case you were wondering, as I was, "mamorated" means "veined like marble.")

Inspired by this news and wanting to bring it to an international audience, I managed to waste spend nearly two hours today trying to successfully photograph a frozen organic raspberry in several different locations, including P's workshop. Three raspberries were consumed during this process, as the hot lights of my various "studio" locations gradually reduced them to mush.

I finally experienced a modicum of success by putting a plastic jar lid on top of the bottom of a little pottery bowl, perching the latest raspberry on top, gingerly balancing the little bowl on the very small desk on which my Mac laptop sits, and bending my desk lamp in a variety of unusual positions so as to cast the best light onto the rubicund berry. (For the curious, you can see that haphazard set-up here.)

Tomorrow's blip better be easier...