Oh Strawberry!

Unripe strawberries.

 These (see above) are unripe strawberries. Said unripe strawberries were picked by Grace without permission. I wouldn't let her climb over the fence and into the strawberry patch the other night because I didn't want her trampling all over everything. So she waited. Until a few days later when she was outside alone and I wasn't looking and did it anyway.

Have I mentioned she has a mind of her own?

I made her eat one of the unripe ones, the greenest one I could find, so she could see the difference between ripe (ie delicious) and unripe (ie disgusting). She said it was good. She lied.

I was angry but it was hard to be too terribly upset since I had just bought and worked up 20 lbs of strawberries from Debbie in my Sunday School classes big patch of berries.

Twenty pounds is a lot of berries.

Ripe strawberries

20 lbs of strawberries

 I spent until midnight after book club a few Wednesdays ago washing, stemming and freezing them so we can use them for the next year in smoothies, yogurt and other desserts. I was really tired of strawberries by the time I was done.

So when Grace picked those unripe ones I was angry but not TOO angry. I let them sit on the bar for a couple of days and they ripened right up.

I couldn't help but be reminded of the time my Dad had grown a bunch of watermelons at our old home place where I grew up. He had picked them and left them lying in a row by the garden in the sun. He was going to go pick them up later and eat them and give them away I suppose.

Unfortunately for him, my younger brother Mike and our neighbor girl Sharla found them first. Mike was probably around six or so then too. Sharla was the same age. 

They saw the immediate potential for fun and smashed every single one those watermelons into a watery goo in the hot sun. I don't think they even ate any of them. 

Dad was plenty mad when he found out what they had done. 

I don't remember what the repercussions were for the two watermelon vandals but I sure still remember the story all these years later. 

I guess it's in her blood.