Strawberries and Sunburns

We had quite the Saturday this weekend. We had been planning for the last week to do some strawberry picking this weekend since the berries are near the end of their season and Mom wanted to freeze enough to get us through the winter. A co-worker of Carrie's has a small patch on her farm only a few miles from us, and she told us we were welcome to come out and take as much as we wanted. So bright and early Saturday morning we headed over to Readlyn to pick berries. We got quite a few and all of us made friends with one of the farm cats that decided we were bent over in the berry patch specifically so we could pet him. The patch was small and we stripped it clean in very little time.

We didn't get enough strawberries from the farm patch to fill the freezer, so after dropping off the picked berries at home along with Justin and Carrie, Mom and I headed over to Heartland Farms to pick more berries. Three giant boxes and a few hours later, we had more than enough to fill the freezer and our bellies. After a quick detour on the way home to see a family friend, it was time to start cleaning the berries and removing the caps. Justin helped with the slicing and dicing, but it still took quite some time to get everything cleaned and ready for freezing. We crushed the berries rather than trying to slice them. Crushing the berries created more juice than slicing would have, which meant we needed less sugar to help preserve the berries. Good all around!

The entire time we were working with the berries Justin, Carrie, and I all kept getting redder and more uncomfortable. I knew I had been getting burned while I was out picking, but Justin and Carrie were a surprise. While Mom and I were at Heartland, they went up to the athletic complex do run on the track. While up there they both got really burnt. I must say, though, I ended up with the most interesting sunburn of the day. It seems, that while I was bending over picking berries, my pants and my shirt were not meeting the way I thought they were. I ended up with a 5-inch band of sunburn on my extreme lower back that is really quite uncomfortable.

Our Sunday was not nearly as eventful as our Saturday. Exhausted from the sunburns and the heat, Carrie and I slept the afternoon away. Justin made a new recipe for us for supper, and we followed that up by meal-planning for the rest of the month and making a shopping trip to get the groceries we needed. Lazy day!

This post is very poorly written. I am sorry for that. Pictures!











Love!

~g