To and From the Strawberry Farm

A friend emailed me yesterday that she had just gone and picked more strawberries.

Apparently the recent rains, while great for the reservoirs and the roses

were not so great for the strawberries.  She said that there were still strawberries, but if there was more rain this weekend that would probably be the end of strawberry picking for this year. 

And so I went.

I took Josh & Nathan to a YM cookout on my way, and when we were almost there Josh realized that he was supposed to bring soda.  Happily there was a gas station out in the middle of nowhere near the cookout.

Even better than not having to go to town for the soda was the list of other supplies that we could buy at the gas station.

(No, this is not Josh, this is Josh’s friend Nathan. Nathan was more than happy to pose by the great sign.  Nathan was less happy several hours later when he was weed wacking in my yard and popped a pebble onto his mom’s van, completely shattering one of the windows…true story!)

After I dropped the boys off I went and picked my berries.  There were lots of berries, but a lot of them were mushy from the rain.

I wondered—if a berry is just starting to look a little soft, might it still taste ok and therefore be ok to pick for jam?

Trust me—it doesn’t.  And now, because I have eaten one, you don’t need to.

I did manage to pick about 15 pounds of berries, enough for a pie and a batch of freezer jam and a few to go on angel food cake tomorrow. 

I was going to show Jenny how to make freezer jam, but after tonight’s massive and awesome thunderstorm I think berry picking might be done for the season.  So in the next day or two I am going to post tutorials for making strawberry pie and strawberry freezer jam.  (So easy, truly!)

I totally enjoyed my drive home from the strawberry farm.  I love looking at the houses along these back country roads, especially the ones that look like this.

 (This is the kind of house I love to look at, but KNOW I could never live in!)

I only stopped by this house because of what was in the field on the other side of the street.

No, I do not know what it is—but it was sure odd looking!

The goats were much more friendly than the mystery creature (Russ thinks it’s a shorn llama or alpaca) and came over to investigate me.  Nothing quite like being nibbled by a goat!

I detoured a bit on my way home to go through a remote neighborhood.  Last year the kids and I used to drive through this neighborhood to pick up someone in our art carpool.  We loved driving past this ginormous house, and because of it’s awesome gates and the lion statues inside on the driveway we started calling it Narnia.

So now we have a picture of Narnia…or at least the gates.

Yummy berries and lovely drive.  Gotta love the purse cam!