Strawbabies!

Is there anything better than Strawberries fresh from the field?! I dragged my poor husband out with me today to pick them. As we walked to the field, he told me that he worked at a strawberry field one summer. I didn't know that. Apparently, he just sat at the booth all day and didn't pick, but I was surprised. I'm the little country girl, and I've never picked. Its somewhat ironic that moving to Pittsburgh would be my first chance to go pick them myself. I suppose I could have done it back home, but that would have required taking a day off of work, which is not something I did very often. But I thought that maybe it would be something fun that we could do together, get me out of the house, and would be cheaper than buying them already picked. So anyway.

We drove out to Reilly's Summer Seat Farm this morning. They told us when we called that the strawberries had been neglected this year because they were building something. I forget what. Maybe another greenhouse? Anyway. They weren't kidding. The berries were small and the plants were covered with weeds. We spent probably an hour and got 3.6 lbs for .99/pound. Not bad, but they're pretty tiny. They taste good anyway. We'll just have to try another farm. They were friendly, though, and the garden center was nice. We'll have to try them for raspberries later.

Thing is, there's a really good farm at home that we always buy our berries from that are just so big and lovely. Oh well. We'll see if we can't find something. A lady in the patch told us that one place she stopped at was selling them already picked for $4.50/quart. Eek. I can't spend that much on berries. I was so hoping to buy around 24 quarts this year!