“Gran, is this one okay?” Jesse gently held a bright red strawberry that was attached to a plant. A berry perfect for picking. I nodded and he put it in his white gallon bucket. “How about this one?” My Grand, almost five years old, pointed to a berry that was pink with a white tip.
“Not that one. Pick the bright red ones,” I said as I handed him a big, juicy, red berry. “Taste this one. It’s ripe and ready to eat.”
Jesse bit and red juice dribbled from both sides of his mouth, his eyes widened, and he chewed. After he swallowed, he said, “That’s yummy!” And he ate the whole berry except the small green cap. “Can I eat more?” He could and I suggested he pick enough berries to cover the bottom of his bucket before eating another. “Is this one okay?” He pointed to a half ripe berry.
It was Jesse’s first time to pick strawberries and I relished the time that just he and I could be together. And I was thankful that Amazing Acres welcomed pickers, even young pickers. My plan was to pick 3 or 4 gallons to make freezer jam and berries to eat fresh for a few days. If I approved each and every berry Jesse picked, we might be in the strawberry patch all day. Again, we compared ripe and unripe berries and I began picking quickly.
Jesse examined a tall weed with barbs that grew in the path between the rows of strawberries. “What’s this?” he asked. A thistle. “Does it have sticker things so nothing will eat it?” Yes. “Does it protect the strawberries? Can I touch it?” After a thorough examination of the weed, my Grand noticed my full bucket of berries. “Gran, how about I pick berries out of your bucket?” I shook my head and reminded him that he could pick berries from the plants.
When Jesse accidentally kicked his bucket, strawberries spilled onto the ground. He heaved with frustration. “They’ll be easier to pick from the ground,” I said. He carefully placed every berry back in his bucket. “Gran, can I spill yours? I’ll pick them up.”
We counted the cows in the field beside the strawberry patch and looked for the barbed wire fence surrounding the pasture. We identified a cloud dinosaur and a cloud train engine puffing smoke. When Jesse asked for a drink of water, I suggested he chew a strawberry for a long time and it might taste like strawberry juice. It did and he had several drinks.
As we carried filled buckets out of the field, Jesse warned me to not touch the tall sticker plants and not step in the mud. “Be careful, Gran. Follow me,” he said. We sat on the grass to rest a few minutes. Looking at four gallons of berries, Jesse said, “Now that’s SOME STRAWBERRIES!”
At home, Jesse told his siblings that he worked really hard to pick the best strawberries. “I got the most humongous bright red ones,” he said. I agreed.
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Filed under: Grandchildren | Tagged: strawberries |
Susan Writes 
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