4-19-10 Strawberries

Took a day off school to get strawberries in the freezer. Grandpa Kaiser was very nice to pick them up from County Market ($.99 per pound) for me, and Jacob went along to help…

…and then we were glad Grandma Kaiser helped with the stemming. We stemmed a lot of berries…but also had a lot of hands to help. They were really sweet berries…I think a lot of berries were snitched too.

And they were huge berries!

Levi and Jesse helped when their math was done (after they milked)…

…and Dad even came home for lunch and stemmed a box in a race which I think Jesse won. It was kind of hard to tell because everyone was claiming victory, and very loudly at that.

After all the stemming was done, Grandma went home, everyone went outside to enjoy the day, and I worked with Levi on geometry for an hour or so. Then he and Jesse went to milk again, Joshua went down to nap again, and the girls and I tackled the rest of the strawberry project. We froze some whole in gallon bags for smoothees, some cut into pieces for fruit salads, and pureed the rest for strawberry applesauce and strawberry lemonade. It was a lot of work but we got ‘er done.

Oops, forgot the lid. Minor detail, huh? There was strawberry puree everywhere…ceiling, floor, cupboards, walls, Kate…

My littlest helpers washed berries for awhile; then they were pretty busy putting the plastic boxes back into the flats.

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Then finally all these nice toys had to be taken to the burn pile.

And…finally…a freezer full of strawberries again.

And I’m so very thankful for all the help, but I still was exhausted by the end of the day. I took a solo walk anyway; I do so enjoy the few minutes of quiet and outdoor time that a walk provides, and I wanted to do my routine Monday morning beer can pickup. Only 10 this week. Grrrr. Wish these kids would grow up, you know?

We did Bibletime at the table right after supper, and then baths and pjs for littles. Then Dad and I went to take something to CIT, and we raided the dumpster for scraps long enough to make into stakes. Came home for some wild rowdiness for Dad and the kids, and then chased everyone to beds.