Workin' The Fields!

One day, I'll end up with a nervous breakdown, where I will have this overwhelming urge to learn how to make my own jams and jellies like my mother once did, yelling at us kids to get out of the kitchen and play outside.  I always thought of doing this myself, adding my own little touch of covering the lids with a cute little gingham fabric swatch, and finishing it with a ribbon.  But until I can afford to scoff at the $100 pricetag it would probably cost to start such an adventure, I think I will stick with Smucker's instead.

Nonetheless, I could not rob my little one, the fun to be had, in picking berries at a u-pick farm.  So I've been thinking of turning these little trips into part of our summer traditions now. (Especially when trips to the beach are a joke right now, because of the money-- or lackthereof!)  As a child, I can remember my mother dragging my younger brother and I to one of those places, and how I would stand around and pout in the hot sun about it.  (Apparently, you could still make money back in those times, and maybe my mother needed some extra gas money or something.)

But times are different now.  I love raspberries.  But I hate the prices at the grocery stores.  I mean, $4 for a teeny plastic container?  That's INSANE!  So last summer, I came across the novel idea of taking my youngest to a berry farm to see how much we could save.  I ended up bringing 3lbs of them home, for just $2.50.

And it's not that big of a deal really though.  (Unless you end up taking a giant container of berries home, and can't really figure out what to do with them all, since your little one complains that there's "too many seeds" in her smoothie.) But it's a good break from all the screaming and yelling that goes on at the park.  Like a kind of meditation for you and your child.  And it also gives them the opportunity to see where some foods come from before they are processed in a factory, and spread on ice cream later on!

Ps-- I found out how to freeze berries.  A friend said that you spread them out on a cookie sheet, and freeze them for a few hours, before you toss them in a ziploc.  This way, the berries don't get smushed together.  Genius!