berry time

Nothing says summer to me like this:  Oh yes, its berry season again!

Ever since my mom brought me a basket of berries last week, I've been trying to find a way to get to the patch. And the other day my kind mom obliged me again, by coming and staying with the Baby, while he was down for his nap, so that the Little Dude and I could do some pickin'. (By the way, it is almost mandatory that you leave the 'g' off of that verb. I dare you to get down on your knees in the straw, surrounded by beautiful red berries and not say it like that. Pickin')

It had rained heavily the night before, but was a beautiful sunny, but cool morning. Perfect weather for strawberries. 

We only picked three baskets because they don't keep forever. One was for my mom, two were for me. They are all just for fresh eating, as we'll go later on this week sometime to do a big pick for jam. 

And I have to tell you how proud I am of the Little Dude's ability to delay gratification. As he snapped the first berry off the vine and said, "Dis is a big juicy one. I eat dis one right now?" and I said, "No, we have to wait till we've paid for them, you go on and put that one in your basket." But even as I said it, I thought to myself 'yeah, right, he's going to eat his way through this patch if I don't watch him like a hawk.' But I underestimated him because he very obligingly plopped the berry in his basket and then picked a few more. All of which went into his basket. Then he got interested in the little flag markers that dot the rows to show where they've been picked, and took off to investigate them. But he did not eat a single berry until we took them back to the barn and had the weighed and paid for them. "We eat dem now?" he asked. "Yep, now you can eat them."

And then he went to town. 

And almost seemed to make a game of seeing how big of a berry he could cram into his mouth without choking. I cut him off after 5 or 6, as we needed to have some left when we got home.

But after all the fun of the pickin', this was the highlight of our trip to the farm.   Of course. Strawberries, no matter how delicious, pale in comparison to a flame emblazoned golf cart. 

 

Comments

[Marcia Van Drunen]

my wee boy was VERY excited to see your wee boy :)
happy eating!

[Helen H]

Cute. Oh how these pictures brought back memories of Tom & I taking our grandkids berry picking. One thing was missing though, the jazzy golf cart!