Berry picking season is here again
Part of the family ritual has become berry picking. It started when my grandson was very young, and I wanted him to know where food came from - not growing on the shelves of a supermarket. Somehow going to pick cucumbers (like my sister and I were forced to do all summer as kids) wasn’t going to motivate him to connect with nature, but I thought berry picking might. As each of the grandkids got old enough to walk, they got added to the trip. I’ve taken other people’s children, too, and for some of them, it was the first time they were allowed to their feet muddy in their whole lives. Imagine.
This year, I went with two of the older grandkids, and a first time for a two-year-old and her mom and dad. We went to the strawberry patch at W&A Farms in Richmond - it may have pouring rain in Vancouver and Burnaby, but had dried up (kind of) in Richmond - and we had the entire u-pick patch to ourselves. The older kids got to some turning point at around the age of 8, and they go into complete production mode when they hit the berry patch. I had to remind them that I had only brought $15 with me, so they should stop picking when they filled their plastic buckets. (They would have gladly picked double that!) The little one probably ate as many as she picked, but that was thankfully about 10 strawberries in all. She was more fascinated by the mud puddles surrounding the fields, and splashed around in her muddy buddy while mom and dad picked enough to make a good batch of jam.
That afternoon, I froze strawberries, made some sherbet, and made a batch of rather syrupy jam using Splenda. And soon, it will be time for raspberries, and I can take one of the other grandkids out berry-picking. Maybe I can get her moms go come out and make an event of it.