It’s strawberry season in Middle Tennessee! We went picking this week and were overjoyed to find dozens of rows of beautifully large berries. We missed last year but ended up purchasing a flat from an Amish farm, so this was Little Buddy’s first experience. It was quite entertaining for us, and he absolutely loved it. He went through several “phases” during the two hours that we spent at the farm.
Phase 1: Calmly playing with the plants while Mommy and Daddy pick strawberries.
Phase 2: Realizes he can pull strawberries off the plants. Enjoys throwing them on the ground.
Phase 3. Discovers how fun it is to squish the strawberries between his fingers. Squishing the berries takes all his might and causes his little body to shake from the energy exertion. Has a big smile on his face.
Phase 4: Discovers that strawberries are edible, and boy is he happy!
Phase 5: Begins trying to eat all the strawberries in sight, including the rotten ones on the ground and the green ones. Don’t worry, Little Buddy did not successfully consume any rotten strawberries.
Phase 6: Does not understand the concept of removing the stem before shoving the whole thing into his mouth. Mommy repeatedly pulls strawberries out of his mouth to break them into smaller pieces and remove the stems. Still consuming green berries and seeming to enjoy them, although he is beginning to slow slight preference to the red berries.
Phase 7: This is when the sugar high kicks in. Looks around and realizes that there are endless acres of sugary berries. Starts consuming at a very rapid rate.
Phase 8: Extraction from the berry field by Daddy. The two of them play in a nearby field while Mommy finishes picking.
In total, Little Buddy only consumed 10-15 small berries and had an absolute blast. We paid the farmer for the green berries that he pulled off the plants, so no need to worry about that. We picked 30 pounds, so it was certainly a successful trip. Time to make jelly!
Wow! Stuff like that is open in your state? NJ is on near-lockdown “indefinitely,” according to our governor. He is going to allow certain parks to reopen this weekend, but only at 50% capacity and wearing masks are highly recommended.
Yep, places like strawberry patches were never closed here. Tennessee strawberry patches are large and have plenty of space to spread out. 🙂
Ellie
I’m sorry, but your son’s behavior is inexcusable. If you let him act like that in the privacy of your home it’s one thing, but it’s a whole different ball game when it’s at someone’s business! I’m glad your husband eventually took him out of the field and that you paid for the damage he caused. I also hope that you sanitized your hands like crazy between pulling the berries out of his mouth and touching all the other stuff you touched afterwards, especially in these times with COVID-19 going around. Most farms and nurseries aren’t even open in my part of the country!
We went first thing in the morning, after the patch had been closed for several days. The patch is huge, and we stayed in our own area and did not go near anyone else. Everyone was being very respectful and maintaining social distancing. As for Little Buddy’s behavior, the owners enjoyed having him there, and they were not upset about the small amount of strawberries that he threw on the ground. They didn’t ask us to pay; we offered. Hope this helps ease your mind. 🙂
Ellie
Maybe the commenter above forgot little Buddy is a baby! Babies don’t know how to behave. They learn as they grow. It sounds like y’all had a great time! I know you probably all enjoyed being out of the house!
This reminds me of a certain story about pecans…
Wow! I am so jealous. We have a small strawberry field of our own, but since it is barely spring in our corner of the world we have to wait at least a couple of months before we can pick strawberries. Fresh strawberries with vanilla icecream is just the best! I actually made jam yesterday from frozen berries.
That must be amazing to have your own strawberry patch!
Fresh strawberries with vanilla ice cream sounds good Netta.
Very cute story!! You will have to share it with little buddy when he is older. My mom told me a strawberry picking story from when I was 2. I am originally from Oregon my parents and Grandmother were picking Strawberries. They took their eyes off of me and I saw a mud puddle proceeded to take off my clothes and get into the puddle when my mom came up to me I said ” I am wimmin mommy I am wimmin” do forget I was only 2 years old. My family always thought it was a cute story.
That’s hilarious! Definitely a story worth telling.
Ellie
I haven’t taken my boys strawberry picking but last year I took my oldest blueberry picking, I was pregnant with my youngest. He was picking some but mostly stealing my dad’s hat and running around with it. We had a blast and enjoyed fresh blueberry pancakes. I still have some frozen ones that we use.
Little Buddy sure knows how to have a good time . At least he likes food that is good for him. You should of had a camera to take some pictures. Little Buddy sounds adorable. Enjoy your strawberries.
Joan,Marion and Marilyn
Here were I live they aren’t even open the Strawberry farms . Most fresh fruit can get the virus so they took out all fresh fruit from my store out so everyone is either buy can fruit or frozen fruit. . I’ve been buying Applesauce. All the garden played aren’t sell the fruit trees.
Fruit can’t catch a human virus. If a store is worried about viruses lingering on surfaces, that can or bag of processed fruit can be as much of a carrier as fruit sitting out in the produce section. Maybe the store had a problem with people handling the produce and putting it back without buying it? Or people lingering in that section and not allowing enough space around others? If so, that’s a human problem, not a produce problem.
Yes it can. Are fruit is covered shields and no kids are a loud at the store.
Our strawberry patch is lovely. It’s quite common to have at least a few strawberry plants here in Finland. We have about 60 small plants. The five of us can eat as much fresh strawberries as we want during the season and there’s also enough for the freezer. I don’t know if it’s true, but I’ve heard that Finnish/Swedish strawberries are the sweetest because of our long days. It never gets dark here in the summer, not even in the middle of the night. As I write this it’s almost 10 pm and the sun is still up. Btw we also grow our own raspberries, black currant berries and we also have an apple tree. We can also freely pick blueberries, lingonberries and cloudberries (and other berries, mushrooms etc) in the forests without asking permission from the owner.
Wish you could send me some of your strawberries in the mail, Netta! 🙂 Do you live out in the country to have all those berry plants?
Elli
Yes, we live in the countryside.
Sounds like a lovely place! Your country is now on my wish list of places to travel someday.
Ellie
Hi Netta, I’ve always been intrigued with your region after seeing jonna jintin’s YouTube channel. She’s from Sweden. Do you know about her? Your area or what I see from her vlogs is very beautiful!
With all that energy the baby has you have a lot to contend with by the time you pick and then process your berries at home. I guess at that stage of the game the baby is hopefully exhausted and down for a long sleep. But then he gets up and you need your sleep! I hope it all works out for you! I admire the many home skills that you have and how you do all of the different things you do.
Thank you! 🙂 I am blessed to have you as a reader. Little Buddy certainly has a lot of energy and keeps us on our toes, but he keeps us entertained.
Have a wonderful day,
Ellie
Ellie,
Oh my goodness those berries look wonderful! We are in self-quarantine in Arizona (it’s hot) so no berries here that I know of. I love your narration of Little Buddy’s phases. He goes from reticence to carefree abandon. It’s wonderful!!!
Thank you, Barb! What berries do you usually have to pick in Arizona?
Ellie
That was hilarious! Sounds like what strawberry picking would be like with my almost 1 year old son 😉 It’s *so good* for their development to let them explore their world. Props to you, Mama! Thanks for sharing this cute and funny story 🙂
Thank you, Ellyn. 🙂 How is your son doing? Any fun new milestones?
Ellie
He is wonderful! Babbling a lot, and standing for a few seconds on his own. Looking forward to him walking, hopefully soon 🙂
That’s exciting! I’m enjoying each new stage. It’s wonderful to watch them reach milestones.
Ellie
Wow you did pick a lot of berries! We get strawberries from a local farm also to put up for the freezer and freezer jam but they’re already picked. A gallon can go a long ways for jam considering it takes only 2 cups of crushed berries to 4 cups of sugar to make a batch…I just take the easy way out and use Suregel. It’s my children’s favorite. I’m glad Buddy had a good day at the farm discovering strawberries. Keep taking him and maybe someday soon (sooner than you think!) he’ll HELP you pick the strawberries 😊 It was interesting reading of his antics.
Little Buddy sounds cute. I would have loved to have seen him at the strawberry patch. It made smile to read about how much he enjoyed it. If you got any pictures that day and show them to him from time to time it will help jim remember the wonderful day with mommy and daddy when he id older. How old is the
little guy now?
P.S. I’d love to hear what gun things your readers are doing during this time that maybe they haven’t done before. I know I have actually found things to do that I’ve never taken time to do before and I have really enjoyed it.
Hi Aunt Bee,
Little Buddy is just a couple months away from turning 18 months. I can hardly believe it! That’s a great idea for a discussion question. I will pose it to my readers soon. 🙂
Ellie