strawberry fields forever

It’s that time of year again. The time we (on California’s Central Coast) wait impatiently for, dream for and drool for (literally). It’s strawberry season!! Red, juicy, plump, little red hearts bursting with flavor. I’m lucky enough to live in prime berry country. Hundreds of acres in our county are planted in these beautiful red gems. And the nearest berry stand is only a few miles away, so when I buy berries they are fresh from the field that morning. No shipping. No cold storage.

My neighbor invited me to the women’s club lunch; the guest speaker (Jim) just so happened to be a strawberry grower. It was interesting to see this accountant turned berry grower talk so passionately about his product. The pride he and his family took in putting forth the best strawberries possible. We learned the history of the strawberry, dating back to the 1600’s. He spoke of how the berry had evolved through the years with breeding the best attributes of French wild varieties with the more consistent producing US varieties. And, we learned about the intensive hand harvesting and the importance of farm labor (no matter what side of the issue we fell on.)

At the end of his presentation he gave us all a 1-pound box of berries, picked right before he came. As Brianne and I savored each one, exploding, full of flavor in our mouths, I thought about Jim, while I munched away, and what I had learned. I may be an advocate of organic gardening. I may encourage suburbanites to pursue home food production and a homesteading lifestyle, but I will never again complain about the price of strawberries. For each season, this family puts their livelihood on the line to produce a little bit of heaven for us to enjoy.

During lunch, Jim and I had a nice chat about home berry patch production. I’ve never grown strawberries before, but I can see a new addition to my garden is in my future.

work, fun and buying lambs

This weekend has been an odd mix of projects. First off I noticed that my patio cover was sagging on one side. when I went to check it out I noticed that the entire corner had really bad dry rot. So, on Saturday all other gardening projects and a trip to a local gun show were put on hold so we could take down the patio cover. This would have been a fairly easy and quick chore had it not been for the fact that the previous owners attached the frame to the facia board of the house. Any stress, or collapse of the cover could have damaged the house and the roof. Needless to say it was a slow very deliberate task. But, we finished in a few hours, with enopugh time to pick up several fence panels I had ordered for the new rows of peas and beans in the garden.

After a long day of work, I settled in with a warm cup of tea and some serene tunes to design my next quilt project. I'm an odd quilter. Or maybe it's just that I'm relitively new to quilting. Anyway, I love the stories an old quilt tells; the fabrics that may have been remnents of a favorite dress or a sack from a bag of flour. I love the idea of taking something that most people would consider trash and making it into something that can be useful and keep your family warm. Maybe it's part and parcel of this life I'm trying to lead; or maybe it's my innate sense of frugality. What ever it is, it draws me to look at things differently. I don't see an old worn out skirt, but a part of my life crying out to be made again.

My new quilt will be that kind of quilt. Made from an old skirt that I loved. The fabric has a pastural scene on it and the complimentary fabrics will be pulled from the colors in that fabric. I'm still fine tuning my design, but when I'm certain of how I want it to look I'll post a sketch.

Today was fun, but also stressful. This is the time of year that Brianne and I buy her new show lambs for the season. Usually we go to livestock auctions (a favorite past time) and buy, but this time one of the lambs we had looked at last week ended up on an on-line auction. We sat anxiously waiting (and bidding) until the auction ended. When everything was said and done we were successful and come next Saturday we will have a new addition to our little farm. And, hopefully we'll be just as successful at next weekends auction, adding a few other friends to keep him company.

I love this time of year, life renews, hope is in the air and anything seems possible.

The picture above is of our new little fellow.

taking care of yourself

I just found out that our town is offering a CERT training session starting on the 26th of January. If you're not familiar, CERT stands for Community Emergency Response Team. It's really not a team though, it's a multi-week course that teaches residents how to take of themselves in emergency or disaster situations. As we all know, local services cannot help everyone at the same time. So, most of us, especially those living in the country or on the outskirts of town like me, are pretty much on their own for who knows how long.

Our self-sufficient life involves more than just growing food and tending animals. This is something that's been on my "to-do" list for quite some time and I'm glad it's being offered early in the year, before the demands of garden and livestock shows seem to take over our life.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes and what I think of it. But, in the mean time why not check out this course in your own cities. You can never have too much knowledge about how to keep your family safe.