Strawberry Fields Forever

Let me take you down, cause I'm going to.....

Strawberry Fields.....

With the song stuck in our heads, we found ourselves strawberry picking this weekend.

Maggie donned some cute strawberry pants

and snuggled into the front carrier (my little strawberry shortcake!)

This was our first adventure picking strawberries, and since we've picked lots of other fruits (blueberries, pumpkins, apples) we decided to try out strawberries. We braved the fog, and found a new patch when we realized our original destination was closed. Before arriving, we asked Henry if his berries would sound "kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk" in his pail like little Sal in Blueberries for Sal. When we got there, Henry said, "my stawbees don't sound kapink, kapank, kapunk in my bucket!" Alas, the problem with cardboard buckets.....

But we did have a Little Henry following a Daddy picking berries

Henry had a lot of fun picking berries, stepping over the plants, and running down the rows in the strawberry fields. He made sure to only pick the juicy red berries, and mostly wanted to pick the berries far, far away.

Wow, look at that fog! It's June!

When we got home, and got the kids in bed, it was time to jam. Strawberry jam, that is. Gabe graciously cleaned all the berries
and I set to work pureeing them and we collaborated on the jam. Almost three years ago was our first jam experience, and I looked like this:

Barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen. Making jam. In June in the oven in the heat. 7 months pregnant with Henry. H-O-T.

This year, I looked like this:

Making jam in the oven in the kitchen in June. Only a lot less hot. And a lot less pregnant. I may or may not have been barefoot. I don't remember. But MUCH more comfortable. We successfully made 16 beautiful jars of strawberry jam, and have been enjoying PBandJs for lunch. And strawberry shortcake. And strawberries on top of waffles. And strawberries just plain.

There's nothing to get hung about, strawberry fields forever.