This last Saturday my friend Leslie lit the strawberry symbol from her place downtown, which means strawberry picking on Sauvie Island! (this lights up strawberry shaped special receiver I wear on a wrist cuff as well as a giant strawberry klieg light above town.) We've gone strawberry picking every year for the past few years, but it's always a spur of the moment "I can be ready in 20 minutes" kind of thing. It's fun. Usually my sister joins us, but this year she was already knee deep in making strawberry jam, so I promised to pick extra.
This photo is after we moved away from the strawberry field with the small, dry strawberries and the little girl with giant yellow lab who was trying to behave himself while the tiny tyrant issued fake reprimands like "Oh, no MARLY! don't eat the strawberries that are right there. No, right over there. You are so bad!" We stood up and agreed by mutual instinct to move over to the field with hardly any other people and HUGE GIANT juicy strawberries. Of course our mutual instinct failed a little bit, because we chose the most bumpy way to get there.
it was worth it! Strawberry season isn't over yet. My experience is that you think you have enough strawberries, but you really don't.
I believe our mutual instinct also led us to a couple of delicious ice cream bars after our berries were weighed and paid for! Dirt clods aside, we have very good instincts, I say!
ReplyDeleteThis year I've been doing a better job of enjoying the strawberries fresh. Last year I got all hoard-ey and I think I froze them ALL before remembering that half the joy of strawberry season is FRESH berries - duh.
But definitely I don't think I have enough yet. Keep your receiver charged and your eyes skyward!
I can't believe I forgot to mention the ice cream!!
ReplyDeleteSo good! Yeah, I need more fresh berries. All mine were processed before I got any strawberry shortcake!
(bec did make some really good strawberry cupcakes, though. SO GOOD!)
I am not a fan of the big, inflated CA strawberries. Are the Sauvie Island ones mucho flavorful?
ReplyDeleteNo, Patty. They are terrible and taste like cardboard! that's why I can't wait to go back and get more...
ReplyDeleteAs for CA strawberries, I think the difference is that the CA strawberries we get here are some weird Only For Export variety. I've had local california strawberries in california that were delicious. The ones for export are never ripe and are gross and tasteless.