Strawberries!

I had planned to go pick strawberries before I knew that it was likely to rain all day.

I was set and determined to go though, unless it was pouring down rain, I would be out there and I packed rain pants, rain coat, giant mud boots and a hat to thwart it all. And of course, I needed none of them.

It was drizzling a bit when I left, but it was a good hour east, so I was certain the weather would be better out there. A couple of friends (and Husband) were going to go with me, but ended up begging out due to weather, but I was not to be so easily swayed. I was the only one in the fields for a while, except for one of the high school girls who was picking on this nifty contraption where you lay face down and pick (and put them into bins). It had a canopy over it and she did an entire row in about an hour. Pretty sweet!

The weather was perfect for it. Cloudy, with a bit of sun breaking through here or there, breezy and mid 70s. I picked for maybe an hour, alternating between bending over, squatting and planting myself on my knees. The sandy soil was damp, but not soggy.

I picked 22 pounds myself of fresh berries, they were perfect. Deep red, plump, and exactly ready.

There were countless rows, all the plants, falling over with red, ripe strawberries.

Amy at Star Farmer’s Market was fantastic, her boys orbiting her all the time, mouths stained red, unendingly full of questions. She picked five and a half pounds of rhubarb for me as well as digging out some of the washed/cut/frozen strawberries (which were fifty cents more a pound, but if it saved me from having to wash and cut them all, I was ok with that). These frozen berries will be perfect for jams and coulis at my convenience.

I came home and began to cut and wash and slice them. I got through ten pounds and then arranged them on the dehydrator trays.

I cut up the rhubarb and used the almond (hazelnut in the book) pie crust from Nourishing Traditions to make a strawberry rhubarb pie for the potluck at Home Sweet Farm tomorrow for market day. I used cane sugar to sweeten and arrowroot and gelatin to thicken and then topped it with more of the almond pie crust for crumbles. It looks good, hopefully it will taste good too.

And then, finally this evening, when I was about to fall over from forgetting to eat and we went to Whole Foods to pick up a few things, the sky opened up and it poured in the way that it only can in Texas, creating rivers in the street unlike anything we’ve had up north. We drove home in a lull, and then as I was finishing up the pie, it came down in buckets and I watched the rain in the backyard from the warm and dry inside.