Strawberry Jam

Every year, for the past three years, we have gone strawberry picking as a family, and then lug the goods home and make jam. This June has been insanely crazy, and it wasn't until we were on the fishing trip that I remembered we haven't gone yet. But, since our weather has been mostly rain for the whole month, the strawberry season was still on, so we decided to go. Unfortunately, Chris had to go into work for a big project that is due next week, so he couldn't come with. It definitely wasn't the same. We did still have a good time, but when there is only one adult with two kids, not a whole lot gets accomplished. I picked like crazy, and Owen picked white ones for the longest time. I told him to only pick them if they were dark red, so then he would pick one and bring it to me and ask if it was okay to pick. (Not super efficient!) Ava picked for awhile, but then said she had to go to the bathroom. Easier said then done. We were in the middle of a strawberry field- there are no bathrooms. Now, I grew up on a farm, so I know all about peeing outside, but you can't exactly do that in a middle of a strawberry field surrounded by other pickers! I didn't want to hike all the way back to the beginning, because it would take a lot of time and then we would have to go back and finish picking. So, I said that we had to get our strawberries picked first, and if we hurried it wouldn't take that long at all! Fortunately, we were mostly done, it took probably another 10 minutes of the fastest strawberry picking hands anyone has ever seen, and we made it to the outhouse at the entrance just in time. Thank goodness for that hand sanitizer! 30 POUNDS of strawberries later, we were headed home. I did not intentionally set out to get so many strawberries. I just grabbed some random containers when we left and ended up filling them up when we were there. We spent all of saturday making jam. Ava even helped take the stems off the strawberries which was extremely helpful and made it so I didn't have to do all of it on my own. Owen mostly ate strawberries, but that was okay too, because it was less we had to deal with! Ava even skipped a friends birthday party to pick strawberries and make jam, I couldn't believe it, but it is so nice to have a family tradition that everyone likes to do together. At this point, I am pretty much strawberried out. We still have quite a few fresh ones, but I can't almost bear to look at them! Our house even smells like strawberries! When Chris came home and saw all the jam, he said, "wow, did you know that peaches are on sale too?" Um, I may have to hold off on peach jam for another time!