Berrylicious!

Can I just say there is nothing better than fresh produce? There is nothing better than fresh produce! I'm talking - straight off the plant fresh people. I've always loved to go and pick our produce, but when I was a working gal...there just didn't seem to be enough hours in the day so we picked strawberries in Kentucky but I don't recall straight up picking anything else. Well, I'm happy to say that now that I've got a wee more time on my hands (thank you Jesus and Tim for making that possible) we take FULL advantage of whatever is in season and which farms offer "you pick". This was our second time back at Springs Farm in Fort Mill, SC and the kids loved it just as much this year as they did last year. The berries were a bit more tart this year than last year, but still delicious. On to some pictures! 

I had to post this picture because it was the first one I took that morning and I mean, it just makes me laugh. Typical Avery...you never know what this girl will give you when you get the camera out. 

 Upon my begging, she bounced back. Stinker. 

 We were on a reduced working "crew" this year because Kennedy was still in school and Ellie was at daycare because that girl is not trying to sit in her stroller and if we had a hard time teaching Avery and Declan how to choose appropriate berries, well...you know. Greyson picked not a single berry. He was too entranced with the bags of rocks that were holding down the plastic tarps...BOY. 

 Declan and Avery picked some duds and did some playing, but overall they did a really good job and were good helpers. 

 Honey has LOTS of experience with produce picking as her Mom was a total pro and workhorse at both picking and preserving anything. Truth be told - that woman was a workhorse in EVERY.SENSE.OF.THE.WORD! Anyhow, Honey makes anything better if her grand babies have anything to say about it. 

 Seriously...Avery's expressions: can't.take.it! 

 Rocks are cool!!!! Even when I'm wearing my big sisters pink boots, I'm all boy :)

 So, clearly in our "collection" of hand me downs we did not have any boy boots and although it wasn't nearly as muddy as last year - I didn't want to ruin tennis shoes. Pink boots it was and he didn't care. Plus...how cute is that? 

 The bounty:

 The kids totally approved. 

Melissa and I made strawberry preserves with some of our berries and although it turned out absolutely delicious, I learned a valuable preserving lesson. Ready for it? Not all packaged pectin's are created equal. Who knew, right? If you knew, don't tell me because then I'll feel even more special than I already did/do. For those of you who didn't know...there is a line of pectin specially formulated for freezer jam and said specially formulated pectin doesn't withstand the standard cooking/preserving method. The result of using such pectin in the standard cook method is what I have decided to lovingly call strawberry compote. Don't y'all think that sounds better than runny strawberry jam...liquidy preserves....strawberry syrup (kind of)? Me too. For some odd reason I have not one picture of our jam making process or our finished product. It could be because my pot (which as it turns out what not big enough) of preserves boiled over and then proceeded to cake up and burn on the stove top which meant we were running to open every window and turn on every fan so that our preserve making day didn't turn into that day where we tried to make jam and set the house on fire. Also...true story: I just found sticky strawberry substance under my oven drawer....YESTERDAY. Sigh. Anyhow, I've given several jars of my compote away with my favorite pancake recipe and it's gotten rave reviews so thankfully we lived, we learned and we still made yummy strawberry stuff. Looking forward to next year already. Next up, blueberries, peaches and apples oh my! Mmmmmm....