Warm and pleasant greetings. We hope you are having a good week. My family enjoyed a few days together as our daughter Leslie and grandson Ethan checked in to see us.
Ethan enjoyed scrambled eggs and homemade waffles by Granny. Leslie brought us a fresh quart of long stem strawberries! One of my favorite fruits is the lusciously sweet strawberry!
I was reminded of strawberries grown in Tennessee in and around my home county. I picked lots of strawberries in my childhood. My family enjoyed the berry-picking days together. Children and adults alike would ride the pickup truck to the strawberry patch.
My family was large enough for our dad to just carry his own family to pick and it made for lots of fun to be with daddy all day. I always picked beside Dad and every now and then he would put a filled basket in my row. The boys, of course, would pick on a row further over in the patch so they could talk their language.
Daddy would stop by the ice cream stand on our way home most days. He let us order and pay for our own ice cream choice. My favorite was the Chocolate Derby.
We were paid 7 cents for each quart basket of berries and 25 cents for a gallon. It was 30 cents for the gallon of capped berries. We got 60 cents for a flat. A flat was a six-quart carrier tray with a handle. This doesn’t sound quite right, but this is what I’m remembering about getting paid at the end of the day’s picking.
If the year’s crop was really good, it didn’t take too long to slide down the straw rows. The berry stand was at the head of the patch. Stopping to carry a flat or quart to the stand took little time, but it was good to rest the knees. We were all good pickers and enjoyed the competition with my brothers.
I love keeping my little finance book with what I earned each day. This childhood experience taught us a lot. We picked the best “Tennessee Beauty Strawberry” anywhere. The strawberry season lasted from three to five weeks. There was another variety ready to harvest about a week later.
At a certain time, we stopped picking so the farmers could deliver his crates. The pickers were allowed to finish picking that field, so we had berries to bring home. My older sister and I would get so tired of washing berries, getting ready for Mommy to make jam.
We had strawberry preserves all year long and fresh strawberry ice cream when in season. Oh, how I sometimes think the childhood days are the best!
It’s warmer weather now and you may find the potatoes in your pantry bin are sprouting. Are they safe to eat? The answer, of course, is you can eat the potatoes. Who wants to throw away food? It’s not the time to be throwing away produce. A sprouted potato is safe to eat.
Cut the sprout and any discolored flesh. If the potato is excessively wrinkled, the flesh soft, for goodness sake, throw it out. (It’s a rotten potato, of course!)
Enjoy the day. Be blessed.
