Yesterday morning, we were in a wagon heading for the strawberry fields at Butler’s Orchard when we heard parents quizzing a small boy on what color strawberries to pick. Should he pick the green ones? The white ones? The pink ones? The red ones? He had learned his lesson and knew the answers. No, no, no, yes! “Red like Daddy’s shirt,” he added for clarity.
Both Noah and North were smiling at me. After we got off the wagon, North commented, “It wouldn’t be a trip to Butler’s without parents telling kids what color berries to pick.” And I remember being that parent, even if they don’t remember being those small children. We’ve been picking berries (strawberries in the spring; blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries in the summer) there since Noah was tiny and before North was born. It’s easier now that they don’t need any instruction and no one is likely to dash off toward the dirt road and possible collision with a farm vehicle.
There were different obstacles, however. The website reported “scattered” picking and rain was predicted on and off all day, with different sources of weather information in disagreement about exactly when. It was sunny when we arrived and soon after clouded over. We picked four quarts of berries quickly. Despite what it said on the website, ripe berries were plentiful, at least in the field where we were. Our containers were so full we had to keep our hands over the tops on the bouncy ride back and even so one of my berries rolled out and away from me.
We visited the snack bar to see if we wanted to get lunch there and decided no, though we did pick up some snacks (I got a strawberry hand pie and ate half of it, saving the rest for later.) It was busy at the snack bar and North and I surveyed the crowd for small children in clothes with strawberries on them, which always charms them. They have a fantasy about taking their own kids berry picking and dressing them in strawberry-themed clothes. We only found two little girls in strawberry t-shirts. Often there are more. North had also dressed for the occasion, wearing earrings that featured ghosts carrying strawberries and crocs festooned with strawberries.
It had started to drizzle while we were in the wagon on the way back from the field and while we were under the shelter of the snack bar the skies opened. By the time we’d eaten (standing up because the picnic tables were outside in the rain), it was back to drizzling so we returned to the car and drove to the farm market where we picked up vegetables, cheese, apple juice, and various treats.
For lunch, we proceeded to a shopping center where Beth and North had lunch at Noodles & Company and Noah and I went to a bakery where we got sandwiches. Then we met up at Sweet Frog for frozen yogurt.
Noah asked me “what we do with strawberries” and I said if we go berrying before Memorial Day, I make strawberry shortcake with them, but I’d already done that with farmers’ market strawberries the weekend previous, so I said we had no definite plans for them. I said if he wanted to bake something with them, he was free to do so, but the day after bringing the berries home we have already eaten a quart of them, so I’m not even sure if I am going to freeze some of them, which I was planning to do.
It was a sweet expedition, with echoes of berrying trips past and visons of possible future ones, too.