Berry in hiding
This is the story of the missing strawberries caper. It started on a Saturday morning, when Sister No. 1 and I found our way to the Happy Valley Farm near De Soto, Kansas, which this year is offering you-pick strawberries for the first time. Finding the farm was the first challenge since it didn’t yet have its berry-picking sign up yet, but find it we did.
Owner Patty Durkin gave us a tour of the berry yard, an array of radiating rows down a gentle slope, with blueberries across the top and grapes, blackberries, black raspberries, red raspberries and, yes, strawberries along the radiating rows. Patty handed us buckets, pointed to the most-likely row of strawberries (the others weren’t quite ready), and we went to work.
In a little while (who knows how long? time disappears during such activities), with the sun getting hot and the ripe berries getting fewer, we stopped picking. Our buckets were about three-fourths full. Patty mounded them in pint baskets (we each got six pints), we paid her ($2 a pint for these unsprayed berries), and we went on our way.
I can’t speak for Big Sis, but a funny thing began to happen to my berries. A pint or so disappeared when I stopped on the way home to visit friends. At least a half pint more disappeared at lunchtime, two or three pints disappeared at dinner (I had help), and another half pint vanished at breakfast this morning.
Worried that the strawberries would disappear without any evidence of having existed, I trimmed and froze a dozen or so. I added the remainders to a rhubarb sauce I was making for a Rhubarb Fool to improve the dessert’s color, and I find that the berries are GONE. The strawberries—six overflowing pints of them—are GONE!
It’s shocking, I tell you. Barely 24 hours after they left the garden, the strawberries have up and left. Yes, I do still have the frozen evidence, and my fingertips (and spots on my shirt) are curiously pink, but that doesn’t account for the missing strawberries. I never got to make the Strawberry Pie I had in mind. Or Strawberry Shortcake.
I don’t know the solution to this mystery, but I know this much: I’m going to have to buy a big bunch of strawberries again and see if the same thing happens.
Meanwhile, here’s more to look forward to at Happy Valley Farm:
Blueberries are next up
…and then raspberrie
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And then blackberries, currently in bloom.
If you plan to try Happy Valley Farm, I suggest you contact the farm before making the drive. The contact information is at the link.
p.s. If you see my strawberries, you’ll know them by their extreme tenderness and juiciness. Sigh.
Susan G. // May 26, 2009 at 11:15 am
Big Sis #1 here. I have been guarding mine like they were the Holy Grail…but did manage to eat about 1/3 (so far). I already had shortcakes that I’d made a couple of weeks ago in the freezer, so it was an easy job of hulling and preparing the strawberries for the shortcake and whipped cream.
And were they good! The best thing about local berries…they are truly ripe…as in red, all the way thru. And the fragrance was pure heaven. Thanks for going with me Janet. It was a great, if sweaty, morning!
Jennifer (Baklava Queen) // May 26, 2009 at 11:25 am
I’m shocked, shocked! to find that strawberries disappear so easily. (What’s that you say? Red juice smeared around my mouth? I know nothing about it…….)
Sounds like a fun time, Janet. Glad you enjoyed it ALL.
Janet Majure // May 26, 2009 at 6:41 pm
I could eat more, believe me, Susan.
Jennifer, it sounds as though you must have the same odd spring skin affliction as I. Unfortunately, I’m afraid, it will pass far too soon. :)
Meanwhile, I got a note from Patty Durkin. She says her husband (and fellow owner) is Spike Durkin. So…good job, Patty & Spike!
Genny // May 26, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Just finished making strawberry freezer jam for ourselves and our children and their families. We reaped the benefits of being part of Spike and Patty’s extended family. But some of their strawberries will come back to them in the form of jam! Thanks S&P.