I love this time of year!

This weekend was considered to be peak weekend for the local strawberry harvest. Last year I took the boys and was done picking 9 qts of strawberries in less than a half hour. This year, it took us a quite a bit longer to pick our 9 qts. I thought that meant I had gone too early as a lot of them were not the beautiful red color but a orange-red color. When we tasted them though, it was a whole different story.

Upon entering the fields Dominic kept saying, "I just can't stop smelling strawberries!"

Johnny was so into the picking this year. He made sure every strawberry he put in his basket was the right color, and had no blemishes. He ended up picking 4 qts all by himself.

Dominic on the other hand didn't really want to be there. Or as he later told me, "I just wasn't into it this year." He picked one layer in his 4 qt basket and even that was a struggle to get him to pick. He would pick all the green or orange ones even though he had been told numerous times what colors to pick and he would get grossed out by a bug or a blemish on the strawberry.

I think his face says it all.

In the end we did get our 9 qts in about an hour, and the boys enjoyed testing one in the field that they themselves has picked.

I think this shot turned out to be my favorite of the day and I think the shirt is what makes this shot awesome.

Later that afternoon we made our jam and that too came out 100 times better than the previous year's. Last year I made a stovetop variety that took forever to get it to boil and it was so messy. This year I did the recipes for freezer jam. What a breeze! So easy and so tasty.

My only regret...I wish I had saved some strawberries for baking. On second thought, maybe I'll just go back again.