Monday, May 3, 2010

Strawberries!

As you're probably aware, it's strawberry season. Which I love, since it's one of my favorite berries. So yesterday, for the second year in a row, we went strawberry picking.

Dear daughter was really excited about picking the strawberries; she says the word in a funny way that makes it just that much better. She got her own bucket and a set of instructions from Dad and off they went, down the row, picking shiny, red strawberries.

I followed behind with Cargo #2 in the stroller, who totally wanted to get in the dirt and was frustrated that he was strapped in.

After about 15 minutes, Dear Daughter wanted to be with me and so ended her strawberry-picking adventure. We made our way to the shady tree where there was a large wagon on which to sit and a swing set. And our snacks to eat.

We spent the rest of our time waiting for Dad to finish picking strawberries while we enjoyed the shade. Dad picked two bucket-fulls. I chatted with a couple who came to the farm 55 years ago to pick; they didn't know that people still pick every weekend. I watched a dad get pretty close to the end of his rope as he wasn't able to tear his little son away from the little red two-door car...for maybe 20 minutes, the dad called, "Hennnnnnry.....Hennnnnry - don't you want to go pick strawberries? Look, mommy is picking berries.....lets go....Hennnnnnry..." And the kid would get out of the car, close the door, the dad would breathe a sigh of relief, the kid would stand outside the car and say something unintelligible about continuing to play with the car. Watching the relief on the dad's face as the kid got out of the car, hopeful that they can now go, and then have all hopes be dashed as the kid got back into the car....was too painfully funny.

Afterwards, we went into the market and picked up a bunch of farm-fresh veggies. We only bought local produce, since I'm pretty sure I can get Florida green beans at my local store.

Dear dad and I were up until 1 am or so making jam with our strawberries....yes, jam. Which we tasted this morning. And it is very very tasty.

1 comment:

  1. Wow, sounds like a really nice afternoon. My mom keeps telling us we should go fruit (or berry) picking, but so far we've not managed it. Kind of sad when we live 30 minutes from the town where a very large percent of all strawberries sold in the U.S. come from (Watsonville). The next town over is the artichoke capital of the world. And just north of that is the garlic capital of the world (very stinky). I wonder if there is some selection process for establishing the "capital of the world" designation for particular crops, or if it's something these towns just declare by fiat and so far no one has argued with them.

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