Friday, May 27, 2011

Strawberry Picking Fun

At the end of April, Mikayla had a teacher workday, so we decided to drive out to Athens and spend some time with my sister and nephew.   There is a local farm near her that grows strawberries and they were in season, so we decided that would be a fun activity for the kids. 

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Our attempts to get some pictures of the kids at the farm prior to going out and picking some strawberries.  

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The farm uses a system with these pink flags to mark where the strawberries have been picked.  You go down to a pink flag, pick it up, start picking strawberries down the row, and then place the flag at the end spot where you stopped picking.  The kids had a LOT of fun with these. Smile

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Mikayla quickly turned into an expert berry picker.  She was very good at picking out ones that were perfectly ripe and picking them from the plant without demolishing them.

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Gavin, on the other hand, was not as enthusiastic about picking the strawberries, at first.  He did eventually come around though.

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Mikayla and Gavin ended up working very well together to fill their bucket.

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Ah, the fruits of our labors! (And I mean labor!!!  It is not that easy to bend down and lean over to pick strawberries when you are 7 months pregnant!)

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As we were leaving, the kids spotted this tractor and begged to sit on it.  Emily and I thought it was a good photo opportunity, so of course, we let them. 

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After baking in the sun, we decided to go swimming.  Thankfully, Emily’s complex opened their pool pretty early.  I don’t think I have ever been swimming in Georgia during the month of April.   The kids were super excited! It was a perfect ending to a very fun day.

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This is a small picture of what 10 pounds of strawberries look like all washed and hulled and ready to be used in lots of recipes.  I spent all week using these things!  We made freezer jam, strawberry syrup, strawberry bread, and strawberry leather (which was a total flop!).  We still had plenty of strawberries left to just snack on, too.  It’s amazing the difference in taste in freshly picked berries – they were just delicious!

We had such a great time doing this.  It is something that we will definitely have to make an annual trip of.

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