Every time we go berry picking, I always think of the book, "Jamberry" by Bruce Degan. It is such a fun children's book and I love the story at the end that tells about him growing up picking berries with his grandparents. "When I was a little boy, berries never came from a store. We found them in fields. Grandma would take a pot, Grandpa would take a can, and I would take a pail." It reminds me of picking raspberries with my grandparents at their "farm". I think I ate more than I picked, but it is such a precious memory.
My kids are strawberry FIENDS, so we make sure to pick strawberries every year. This year I had a dream that we missed strawberry season (which we did once when I was 2 weeks to delivering Jaleigh) and we couldn't do that again. So Thursday morning at the crack of dawn we got up and headed for the strawberry patch!
They just have a table there that have the price ($11.00/ 8 quarts) and a glass jar to put your money in. They also have instructions that say "Find a row with a pink flag, start picking away from the cars and then move the pink flag to the end of where you pick so the next person will know where to start." Easy enough.
However, Nathan thinks it is a ploy to hide the really BIG berries so he opted for the flagless row. During our pick, the owner of the field drives by, "Is there a flag in that row?" Nathan plays dumb... "Oh- (looks around) no. Should we be in one with a flag?" "Well, there are usually more berries in the rows with the flags, but you can pick there if you want to" and he drives off. Nathan goes over to the flagged rows and looks around. "Nope," he says when he comes back "we've got much bigger berries here..." So the conspiracy theory continues...
We did get a lot of berries pretty quickly so maybe he is on to something. And leave it to Saroya to find the berry twins!
Anyway- not bad for $22.00 and a lot of fun family memories!
When we got home I was like "Yeah COOL! I love that we got all these berries! I am going to freeze some and make a ton of strawberry jam!" And then it hit me... Oh, I have a lot of work to do. Oh and I need to go grocery shopping today. Oh and we promised the kids a trip to the beach today. Yuck. Nathan was nice enough to take over washing and cutting the stems off so I could go shopping and then we hit the beach for the evening.
I don't really mind making jam by myself, late at night. It is kinda messy.....
but my Grandma Nellie always said that "a good cook always cleans up". I do what I can...
7 comments:
I am laughing so hard right now! Lazy Beth bought strawberries at the farmer's market today (yeah, 8 quarts for $22! what a rip off). I was happy to have them, ready to get some jam...but so not ready to stand forever on my hard tile floor and make that jam. Whew. I still have 4 quarts to go, and Dan's zonked out on the couch. Do I wake him???
I will say: I haven't licked the countertop today! Hee hee hee...
Licking the counter top= best way to clean up..and tasty too! Haha. You crack me up Holly.
And you brought back memories of me picking raspberries at Nellie's house too! I hadn't thought about that in YEARS! Thanks for the trip back in time!
You are too funny Holly. I'm not a good homemaker like you. None of my family likes strawberries but me though. Can you imagine?! I guess it'd be pointless to pick tons of straberries and try to eat them all myself.
That's our Holly!! You are just too funny. Thanks for sharing (I think) =)
I seem to remember you kids getting a lot dirtier when we went picking many years ago. How did they stay so clean? The strawberries look great, but also look like a lot of work. I think you have some of Grandma Nellie's genes.
Oh and I interrupted that wonderful strawberry jam session? Thanks for helping me find that number today! It was a lot of fun and my kids were stained red all day! I love it!
Also, I LOVE that picture of Jaleigh! She always wants to sit on my lap in primary. She melts my heart.
I remember doing this! You are so lucky to have this 'sweet' opportunity available for the taking. It is great that you all work together to make it happen. Love Ya!
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