Picking Strawberries

June exists primarily to produce strawberries. Last June, unfortunately, I didn't have the nerve or spare energy to go in search of real strawberries. This June D1 and I set out to change that. Not that we had to look very far, as some friends of ours live on a strawberry farm just outside of town.

The pricing at the field was confusing: you could buy them already picked for $3.50/quart, or you could pick your own for $1.50/lb. I went on the assumption that they must be paying the pickers something and decided to see how long D1 would cooperate with me picking my own.

Naturally preferring to be outside, D1 was perfectly happy to sit in the row and watch me pick. Contentment turned to ecstasy when she discovered the red things in the bushes were tasty and mushable. I considered briefly whether I should forbid them to her, as I had not yet decided she was old enough to start strawberries, but then I considered that I could either spend the next half-hour teaching her not to eat strawberries, or I could spend it picking strawberries, and decided it was time to start on a new food.

We made it up to five pounds of berries before I decided she'd had enough sun and strawberries, though she was not yet berry-colored anywhere but her clothes. Trust a first-time mother to put a child in the cute "Little Farmer" overalls to go picking berries instead of in something that's already stained. Anybody know how to get berry juice out?

The berries are good. Much more berryish than the ones in the supermarket ($1.50/pt.). Not as sweet as those exquisite tiny ones we grew in our garden when I was younger, but nothing ever is.