On Saturday morning my husband and I took our son, his wife and my three grandchildren strawberry picking in a town about an hour from our city. We choose what will probably be the hottest day this year to go sit in a sun drenched field.I really had a very good time in spite of the temperature. We went last year and it was okay but the season was dry and it was a whole lot of picking to get even one pail and getting up and down was way too hard for me so I mainly took pictures. This year was different and the berries are amazing. It has been wet and warm in the flooding areas of Manitoba and the berries on this farm were bursting with juice.
This was the 8 month old baby's first time going "picking" and he got to taste his first strawberries ever straight off the plant. There was no stopping those grabbing little baby hands after that! Strawberries are Yummy!Our two preschoolers were very excited and well behaved, but we were all getting overheated and I was getting exhausted and cranky fast in that kind of unusual heat.
This was the easiest picking I have ever done. I went about 6 feet out into the row and plopped down on the straw dropped my cane beside me between the rows and picked my basket full with only scooting along a bit twice. I kind of wanted to pick even more baskets, like my son was doing, but I for once I realized it wasn't worth pushing myself and getting overwhelmed.
We paid for the berries, put them into our cooler, got in the car and drove to a nearby air conditioned restaurant to have some lunch. The kids were still hungry in spite of having tummies full of berries!
Now I have to do something with the two overflowing large baskets of berries we picked and my son has 6 baskets to deal with.My daughters want to go raspberry picking very soon. The good news with that is you don't have to crawl on the ground and try and get back up again when you are picking raspberries. The bad news is I am not sure how long I can stand and pick, and I sure can't keep bending over to put them in a pail.
Any helpful hints? I would also love any suggestions for making low calorie jams.
Next time, I am taking a comfy lawn chair ... just in case.
2 comments:
Linda,
If you are going to make jam, I want some the raspberry kind.
I've been looking into gardeners stools. I know that places like Lowe's and Home Deposit have them. You sit on the top, your tools are in a tray right below you and your on 4 sturdy wheels below that.
As for low cal. jam, let me talk to my mother-in-law. She makes jam and now that my husband (her son) has diabetes, she's always looking for ways to cut the carbs. in food.
Woke up this morning seeing you use my solution for collecting weeds. I use a cheap light wastebasket which has two advantages over a pail. The sides are 12 inches tall so I don't have to lean over as far. It has stiff sides rather than a swinging handle so it is easy to move ahead of me. If you buy a new wastebasket and use it only for berry picking you won't have to worry about it being contaminated. Wastebaskets don't scream berry picking so it took my brain quite while to make the connection.
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