STRAWBERRIES!!!

The Strawberry season is upon us and there is strawberry signs all around. It makes me want to eat them all day long. What can you do with strawberries?; strawberries on ice cream, strawberry milkshakes, strawberries over cereal (cheerios works best), strawberry pie, strawberries and cream Frappachino at Starbucks(this morning!!), Strawberry jam (thanks mom those 16 jars won't last long), strawberry and rhubarb crisp or pie or plots, strawberry shortcake (ah the memories or childhood toys and all her lovely friends- those were the best smelling toys ever!). There's got to be a million different things you can do with strawberries besides just love eating them by themselves. We had a great time picking strawberries while mom was here. Actually we were having trouble finding a place to get strawberries as everyone else seemed to have the same idea and the patches were getting all picked in the morning so by the time we were ready to go they were closed for the day only to open the next day and so on. We spent 2 1/2 hours making French style creapes (spelling???) only to find there were no You Pick strawberry patches open that night so we went to a Picked For you place just to have some. You can't invite 4 people over for supper and have the 3 of us and 2 o r3 kid's with no strawberries so off we went and got some. Later that night mom had some friends from out of town call her back and invite us to the place were they were working (a strawberry patch of a family member of theirs). This nice couple comes out to help out her sister for the strawberry season. I think she does it to benefit from her sisters large supply of strawberries. She and mom had a great visit while they were picking and her all about the tons of strawberries they pick and jar to take home with them. My mind wondered back to a great strawberry picking experience I had with some of my girl friends. I am sure they will never forget it either. It happened a few years ago (in my family you can say it happened a few vehicles back) and it will be a strawberry picking experience never to repeat. The few of us girls all wanted strawberries for jam or just eating. So I offered to drive and off we went to a patch in a nearby town. I think the town was suppose to be about 1 hour away. Well, we got onto a dirt road just off the highway heading in the right direction and just as we went over the railroad tracks we heard the loudest 'bang' noise and thought - "strange I've never heard that before" and as my car slowed down I realized something for sure was wrong. We got out of the vehicle and realized my clutch had just went and that was the end of our chances to get strawberries that day. We called for a tow truck and while we waited we debated how long the walk would be to the patch as we had just seen the sign for it up ahead. We picked wild flowers and roamed in the tall field grass, sat on the road and just talked and waited. The tow truck fit all of us girls inside and the vehicle was brought back into town. Once at the auto body shop we walked over to get a cold drink and a phone and ended up in some dingy pub that none of felt comfortable in so used the phone and left. Decided to wait at the nearby donnut shop for John (I think or was it Cory? ) to pick us up. Anyways, to end the story it was the most expensive strawberry experience I had. $1500 later and no strawberries we decided that someone else should drive and we tried it again a few weeks later. Those were the best tasting strawberries ever (or maybe I just thought so, as there was so much effort just to get them). Thanks girls those are memories I treasure and laugh at and appreciate those moments we had together!!