Strawberry Fields Forever

This morning bright and early my daughter, son and I headed off to the strawberry farm. We were armed with appropriate attire: hat, old shorts, shoes that can be easily cleaned and of course I wore a red shirt so as to camouflage the mass amount of strawberry juice that was sure to accumulate during the day. The day couldn't be nicer with the sun shining and the fields were nice and dry. My daughter is an excellent strawberry picker. She gets right in the row, head down and off she goes. She can outpick just about anyone. My son, however, is let's just say not the greatest strawberry picker. He is a GREAT strawberry eater though!!! His basket is always at least 75% less full than either of our baskets. He seems to have an affinity for picking just the perfect berry. He loves to show me each berry he finds. He then marvels at the perfection in his just-picked berry and then proceeds to pop the strawberry in his mouth. He then always says "I was right. That WAS a perfect strawberry!" I am fairly certain the only reason I bring him along is so that he can get his fill of strawberries at the patch, so that the ones I pick can make it home. At least he actually picked his own strawberries to eat this time. In years past, he used to pick them out of my basket!!! So while my son ate, my daughter and I picked and picked. We were thinking of strawberry pies, strawberry vinaigrette salad dressing, chocolate covered strawberries and fresh made strawberry jam. We were really making progress and just about the time I was about ready to quit because it was really getting hot out, my son walked down our row with ice cold water bottles. He used his own money to buy us some cold water. He is so thoughtful! I am fairly certain the reason I bring him along is because he is awesome! The water replenished our energy and we were able to keep picking. When we finally called it quits between the 3 of us, we picked 5 peck baskets full. That is 40 quarts of strawberries!!!! We were quite proud and the farm manager was very impressed with our beautiful bounty of berries. After we got home it was JAM TIME! My daughter and I worked in the kitchen all day and ended up with 26 containers of strawberry jam. That is one container of strawberry jam every other week for an entire year. Our sandwiches will be delicious! We still have 2 peck baskets full so tomorrow we will be making homemade strawberry ice cream, salad dressing and chocolate covered strawberries. Despite the fact that my kitchen is red, my fingers are red, my red shirt is even more red than when I put it on and my entire house smells like strawberries .... I think I hear the whipped cream calling me from the kitchen. It is asking me to put it on top of a big bowl of fresh sliced strawberries. Yes. Yes. It IS the whipped cream! I believe he is very good friends with Mr. Milk Chocolate Chips who wants to join him in my bowl. Well I don't want to ignore the whipped cream and chocolate! I better go grab my bowl right now! mmmmmmmm!