Posts Tagged ‘homegrown strawberries’
Elysa’s Birthday
Today is Elysa’s birthday, and Cyndie and Elysa are celebrating on a Norwegian cruise boat that will take them up into the Arctic Circle to experience the midnight sun.
After their cruise, they will make their way to Oslo and spend a few days visiting with Friswold relations.
Asher and I have survived our first weekend on our own, with one week to go until I drive to the airport to pick up our Norwegian adventurers. So far, so good. He’s only disappeared on me 3 or 4 times and got himself on the wrong side of the fence of the neighboring property once.
Ella, who stopped by to feed the animals when I was in Cambridge on Saturday, told me that she walks him on a leash to avoid the risk of losing him. I can fully understand why she would choose to do that.
After I retrieved him from one of his unauthorized jaunts yesterday, I convinced him to help me process the latest compost pile that finished cooking.
I was wheeling loads down to the staging space by the labyrinth, and Asher would muster the effort to get up and follow me. The second time we were making the trek, a rabbit hopped into view, and Asher came to life with a sprint that took him out of sight into the woods one more time.
Having now grown accustomed to losing him, I didn’t fret over it. When I got back to the compost area with the emptied wheelbarrow, Asher was already there, waiting for me to return.
Over by the strawberry patch, there was a clue waiting for me to see that I’m not staying ahead of the squirrels, birds, and probably rabbits that think the juicy red fruit is growing there just for them.
The stump of a tree had quite a few of the discarded green leafy crowns of the berries scattered all over it, in addition to two bright red pieces of fruit. I guess the critters are not trying to hide evidence of their activities. Seeing that emphasized to me that I need to be picking berries before they get to them.
Unfortunately, I found very few worth keeping. If the squirrels weren’t taking them, some slug-looking insect was burrowing into many of the rest. I find mowing grass to be a much more dependable endeavor than trying to grow fruits and vegetables.
I’m thinking about celebrating Elysa’s birthday today by treating myself to some ice cream in the middle of the afternoon. Since they are 7 hours ahead in Norway, it will be like I’m joining them for an after-dinner dessert.
I won’t be putting any fresh strawberries on top.
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Always Interesting
There is always something interesting happening around here. I wrote yesterday about Mia’s allergic reaction. Here is a photo:
When Cyndie checked on the horses last night, she found Mia standing with her head in the corner looking as forlorn as Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. Mia hadn’t even finished her oats and corn in the bucket. Cyndie checked under the fly sheet and found all the welts had disappeared. As soon as she pulled that sheet off, Mia’s countenance changed dramatically.
She picked up her head, moved out of the corner, and headed over to finish eating the rest of her grains. I don’t think Mia liked wearing that fly sheet one bit.
The different coloring of those two images is a result of direct sunlight in the morning and Mia standing under the shade of the overhang around sunset.
I stepped inside the air-conditioned house during a break from mowing in the heat and didn’t hear a peep from Asher. I wandered from room to room in search of him and found him like this:
I think Asher is rather fond of air conditioning.
Cyndie disappeared for a while and I got a text from her.
“Lots of strawberries. Going back to pick more. Will u feed dog?”
This time of year, when I can’t find Cyndie, she is usually outside picking berries of one kind or another.
Jam season won’t be far behind. And based on past experience, if it’s not canning jams, it’ll be something else interesting. It always is.
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Strawberries Galore
Cyndie’s strawberry patch is now producing fruit and doing so in quantities that have her plotting endless ways to use them. It’s a good thing we have freezer space because we already have more strawberries than we can eat. Not that we aren’t doing our best to consume massive quantities while they are fresh.
On my birthday, Cyndie made me a special treat to rival my Dairy Queen favorite: a Frozen Hot Chocolate.
She created a frozen strawberry-flavored hot chocolate topped with a drizzle of her homemade hot fudge sauce. It was delectable.
Then she picked more berries.
Soon, there was a strawberry cream cheese pie to be taste-tested.
It passed my inspection.
Last week, Cyndie baked shortcake biscuits to sweeten me up with strawberry shortcake desserts.
It worked.
We are having a berry, berry delicious time finding creative ways to take advantage of the bounty of fresh home-grown strawberries.
Please pass the jam…
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Looking Fine
Well, I didn’t take a picture of the cut hay field, but Cyndie did.
Despite the downpour we received on the day I got home from my bike trip, the land is really dry around here. That means the horses kick up a lot more dust when stomping to shake flies loose and areas of grass are turning brown. Luckily, the strawberry patch Cyndie put in last year is not showing obvious signs of being too dry.
In fact, the plants are bearing fruit!
Doesn’t that look fine?
Fresh homegrown strawberries taste so much better than any other version of strawberries. There is nothing quite like biting into produce just picked from the garden.
Things tend to taste even more fine than they look.
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Relative Something 