Strawberry Picking 2014.....

 

This past Saturday (June 7th, 2014) we made our third, annual trip to Spencer Farms to pick strawberries.  I gotta say, I loved looking back at the photos I've taken the last three years of our Farm visits.  The girls love picking strawberries, and were actually a huge help this year.  Due to Terry's lingering back issues, he wasn't able to help much.  Both girls definitely picked more than Terry did.  Our grand total was 29.59 pounds of berries.

 

We now have a nice stock pile of strawberry jelly/jam in the freezer, we made a strawberry ice cream cake and stocked up our freezer with eight large bowls of strawberries.  There is nothing like thawing out a bowl of strawberries we picked during the middle of winter!!!

 

Here are a few photos:

 

 

This years crop (in my opinion) was the most abundant yet.  The rows were almost overgrown and the leaves were huge. 

 

You can tell from several of these photos that they both have their mouths full.  They definitely ate their share.  You can also tell how large the crop is/was....there wasn't much room to walk between rows.

 

This is the box that they picked.  Not bad work!!

 

Our loot....



 

This is the point where I wish I would have taken more photos.  We set up a regular assembly line to get the berries processed.  Terry and Addison worked on the cutting up process.  Terry cut them, Addison helped him clear his cutting board and kept running things to the garbage for him.   Alexis was my little helper and was in charge of the "stirring" process of the jelly.  Don't worry, I was right next to her the whole time.  Typically, I would never let my kids help with anything that involves the stove, but having her help was a lifesaver.  I let Alexis stir until it got close to boiling at that point I took over.  She was cracking me up with how careful she was being because she knew it was hot.  We pretty much spent all afternoon processing strawberries, but had a great time doing it as a family.  I love that they are actually able to help now!!!

 

This is our jelly.....minus one jar that shattered when I added the hot liquid and the two large pints that are currently in the refrigerator.