Berry Good Father's Day

Our favorite strawberry patch opened last Monday. And every day they would post about noon how the field had had heavy picking and they were going to close until the next day or even 2 days away. 

We LOVE strawberries and our tradition so yesterday we all woke up early. We were in the car by 6:45 and after picking up a delicious (but really slow) and fancy Father's Day breakfast at McDonald's we got on the road. 

We pulled into the patch at about 8:05, just a few minutes after they opened and the parking lot was full.  

We had to wait behind 3 other groups for our golf cart ride to the patch.  And then we got a great two rows to pick! 

Apparently, 8 was/is the magic age for picking. Don't get me wrong, every year it gets better, but C was so helpful and picked a whole lot. Husband is our champion picker and I don't think that title will eve be relinquished, but C really did a nice job! (M was good too, but still needs encouragement and entertainment.) We had just under 25 pounds of berries picked in about an hour and were on the road home at 9:17. 

The early bird gets the worm and all that, because the line to get into the field was about 11 groups deep and the parking lot was not only full (in fact a car had basically blocked us in...) but there was a line of cars parked on the side of the road. 

I am so happy to have fresh strawberries in my house. There's something so magical about the drive home with the faint smell of strawberries in the car. And then there are tons of other good things to come. I actually made jam this morning and we promised Miss M we would make a strawberry pie this year!