Reasons to go strawberry picking

I had to think hard about this after I woke up Thursday--the 90 degree day we planned to go to the strawberry farm. In addition to the heat, mud, and spiders, there are so many things that can go wrong when you have a specific task ahead of you in public with five kids plus one niece. (For example, we could follow the elderly farm owner about 200 yards across the field and as he gives us directions I might notice Eddie wasn't there. But luckily maybe he'd dressed himself in a bright green shirt and I could just barely see him a few feet from where we started, calmly picking berries with another family. That's actually what happened.)

So here's a pep talk for my future June self with the top five reasons to just do it.

1) It's so wholesome and old-timey. I'm pretty sure that's why most people go, from what I saw. There was one family with matching straw hats looking like they walked out of a magazine. We didn't look like that. We were a hot, sweaty, sticky mess. But we left happy and loaded with strawberries.

Post-picking slushies. They deserved it!

2) It reminds you of being a kid when every summer, your mom would make you go strawberry picking on Wacousta Road. And there was nothing better than a sun-warmed Michigan strawberry right off the plant.


3) I'm Dutch. Sixteen cups of the best-ever freezer jam, 2.5 gallons of frozen strawberries for smoothies, strawberry shortcake, and all-you-can-eat strawberries for 24 hours x 7 people for $28 in berries is worth it.

The haul.

4) It's a good reminder that although 98.3% of the things I need to do in like are made more complicated and less efficient, there are things that are easier with six kids and strawberry picking is one of them. The child who likes to direct things can direct to her heart's content. There's a built-in snack. And when one kids decides to stay back and hang out with strangers, you can send a big one to retrieve him. Many hands make light work, they say, and occasionally it's true.

5) You get to hear Mary Cate say, "strawbeedies." It's really cute.