Strawberry Picking at Hall Family Farm

Oh, strawberries. Red, sweet, and delicious. This lovely fruit is the first produce available for pick-you-own around here. I've had this weekend circled on the calendar for months. All week I have watched the farm's website for picking updates and the weather to make sure it was going to cooperate. All of the factors came together beautifully to give us a wonderful afternoon of strawberry picking. After a couple of hours in the field we came away with twenty pounds of strawberries and red dyed fingers that suggested juicy sweetness was in our future. They are, oh, so sweet and delicious. Half of a container is already gone and we've been home for less than an hour. I've reserved one box for jam and one for freezing. And Steven has kindly asked for at least one pie, though I suspect there will be a few pies coming his way.

If you've never picked your own produce, I highly recommend it. There is nothing quiet like a piece of fruit eaten directly from the vine. Warm from the sun and full of juice that trickles down your chin. It's good to know where your food comes from and how hard those farmers work, not that two hours in a field can truly tell you the countless hours a farmer will spend making that fruit ready for your brief stay. But it's good to be reminded, or for children taught, that food doesn't magically appear in the grocery store. It gives us a chance to teach our children the process of seed to flower to fruit. Plus there's something about standing in a hot field breathing in the earth and the ripening fruit, letting the sun wash over you, that's good for the soul. Or maybe that's just me.