Thursday, June 4, 2009

The day was called on account of rain.


A few nights ago, as I sat in the kitchen thumbing through dinner recipes, my little brother passed by on his way to work and announced, "Thursday, my friends and I are going to pick strawberries at Huber's."

I love Joe Huber's Family Farm. A slew of childhood memories floods my mind when I hear the name: riding around on hot, dusty flatbed trucks to fields where my family picked gallons of ripe U-Pick strawberries, blackberries, peaches, apples, and pumpkins; my stomach jumping as my brothers sent me skyward on the enormous painted green see-saws; the honeyed, fermented redolence of the traditional country store; falling off tire-horse swings into a spread of itchy-soft hay; making sure to pet every last goat in petting zoo; eating another fried biscuit for just one more blissful taste of homemade apple butter...

I looked up from the heart-healthy cookbook I had in hand and met Chris's eyes. We were both silent for a moment, staring at each other.

"Am I invited?" I asked. "My friends invited you." "Because it's not okay to tell someone about your awesome plans if you're not planning on - your friends invited me? I'm invited? YES."

Of course, he followed with an "I'll let you know what we're doing," a gentle way of declaring that I had better maintain a minimum proximity in my relationships with his pals. Nobody likes big sister crashing the fruit-gathering fĂȘte.

So on this drizzly Thursday morning, I'm waiting to learn if my presence has been deemed Too Embarrassing to be a team member on the berry-hunting expedition. If so, I might just stow away in the backseat anyway: the "freaky" berries and the jam I'll make with them will be worth it.

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5 June: Update

Ended up picking $28.74 worth of berries in perfect sunny weather today. Photographic evidence with my cousin Danny and me below:


We made two batches of freezer jam with what's missing out of the box in my right hand.

2 comments:

jillian said...

chuis jalouse! my current desktop is from chocolate&zucchini and it's a picture of all of these perfectly ripe strawberries, begging to be made into a tart or something equally delicious.

Unknown said...

JEALOUSY ALL AROUND