Greene~ I never knew you could eat those beautiful berries! What an awesome article. I totally love your writing style. I will try to capture enough beauty berries to give this a try. Oh, and a side note ~ I too, have a Jack the dog

And a Thunder as well

@Toni,
Jack and Thunder are beautiful; thank you for sharing their photos. (Have you visited our pet thread?)

Hope you enjoy hunting for the American beautyberry and can harvest enough to make jelly. If you are short of the berries, add a few apples to make up the difference. Please remember to leave some of the berries for the mockingbirds; they eat these in the winter months. Since you have dogs and I am assuming at least one of them is a male dog, I will tell you that I do not harvest the berries from the lower 1/3 of any given shrub... ...those are the ones the birds can have.

Nothing to do with berries or jelly, but my dog has discovered clothes. He thinks he looks sexy in his new shirt.

" my dog has discovered clothes. He thinks he looks sexy in his new shirt.”
That is way toooo funny. Your dog DOES look sexy in his new shirt
Back to the “leave some berries for the birds” Oh, if you only knew how much wildlife I feed. It is a miracle when I actually get to harvest anything for myself. I spend countless hours in the garden, too much money purchasing seeds, and amendments, only to loose most of what I produce to the birds, gophers, mice, voles, slugs, and bugs. But, I keep on trying. I know they gotta eat too, and my stuff is easier, and tastes better than the stuff they could get on the rest of our thirteen acres, and surrounding wildlife habitat.