Living in Oz

I was a little envious of all my Texas friends when they were picking strawberries in March.  But I didn't have to wait long.  By the end of April there were fresh strawberries at a local farm for us to pick.

So we took the kids on a short drive out in the country to the Wohletz farm.  In about half an hour we picked over 25 pounds of strawberries!

They were big, beautiful, red, and delicious.

We ate a bunch over the next couple days.  But they were ripening fast.  So I froze a bunch whole to use in smoothies and we made some ice cream and strawberry torte.  Then I made lots of jam.  Both freezer jam and canned jam. 

I tried to make some fruit leather.  But it ended up way to tart to enjoyably eat.  So I will have to try that another time.  I made some bread to go with the jam.  And we ate that for dinner.

Since I made the jam about 3 weeks ago, we have eaten 6 jars (most larger than the one above).  In the 12 months before that, we ate maybe 2 jars of the store-bought stuff.  I guess that means the kids liked the homemade kind best.  Right now there are fabulous peaches at the store.  I think I need to can/freeze those next.