Sunday, June 20, 2010

Strawberry Picking

Saturday morning was spent picking strawberries.  I really must remember to do the math better.  9 people picking strawberries means you rapidly end up with more than you thought you would get.  Not that we won't use them all but we really didn't intend to buy 45 lbs of strawberries.  The berries were mostly on the smaller side this year so by the time all of the containers were full, we'd picked a lot.
May I say that for some reason Katie seems to be suddenly very grown up to me lately.
Gabe actually did a very good job picking strawberries this year. As long as you count green ones as good and you ignored the child eating pretty darn close to his weight in berries.
The older boys make up a pretty decent work crew and do a great job.  But some of them still tire out before the job is done.
Here is Robert with his mouth full of the strawberry he finally managed to get from Dad. Alan had this issue about having juice running down his back and insisted that no one share with the poor boy.  I think this must have really ruined Robert's day because he refused to smile for the camera.
 Since we spent so much time out in the strawberry field, the ladies directing traffic to the appropriate rows took pity on the children and gave them a ride back to the car in their super special green tractor.  This was, I do believe, the highlight of the day for at least a few of the kids.

The next few days will be spent making jam, strawberry pancake syrup (yum, the no corn syrup kind), strawberry muffins, strawberry shortcake, chocolate covered strawberries and putting quite a few in the freezer for later this year.  No, we will not buy any strawberries from the store for the rest of the year.