Nothing To Get Hung About

Looking for something to do this weekend? What if I told you there were places you could go which would let you do the sort of backbreaking labor that falls into the "illegal immigrants do the jobs that Americans don't want to do" category? Is that something you might be interested in?

Last Saturday the famiy loaded into the minivan and headed to Loysville, where Spiral Path Farm was holding its annual pick-your-own-strawberries weekend. We lurrve Spiral Path; they're an organic farm that has a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program -- you pay an annual fee and every week from May to October they deliver baskets of freshly picked organic to drop-off sites throughout the area. It's great to eat tomatoes, lettuce, peas, etc. that were picked the day before, and in this age of increased awareness about farming techniques and food miles I love knowing that my food was grown less than an hour away.

(By the way, apropos of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Spiral Path hipped us to Jujo Acres, who deliver organic and free-range beef and other meats. It's all good.)

So anyway we drove out to Loysville, ready to pick our allotted two gallons of strawberries. It was a beautful day, sunny, with a light breeze, and when we arrived the fields were already full of other city dwellers:



We quickly got to work; I took charge of Zosia while Daryl got back in touch with her Polish peasant roots, picking berries with Genevieve sleeping (and occasionally screaming) in the sling:



After an hour or so, we had our berries and were ready to head home. After some hardcore hulling and culling, we had the loot, ready for consumption in pies, ice cream, or as-is:



One of the main reasons we wanted to do this was to start introducing Zosia to the idea of where food comes from. It's an easy thing to not think about; you go to the market or grocery store or restaurant and get your food, and it's easy to forget what went in to getting it to that point. I don't want my kids to think that food comes from "the store," and we're lucky enough to live in a place where the actual production locations of so many foods are so close by.

Plus we wanted to get out in the fresh air, and give Zo something fun to do. I think she enjoyed it, as you can see from this shot:



Want to go strawberry picking yourself this weekend? Learn everything you need to know, including locations and how to do it, at PickYourOwn.org.

Enjoy!