Strawberry Picking

Last week found us in Virginia Beach for a Mission’s Conference at Tabernacle Baptist Church. This is the church where Ben took some Seminary Hebrew classes in 2008 and 2009. We didn’t attend Tabernacle for church, so we had a great time making new friends. We also haven’t been back to Virginia Beach since moving to Brooklyn four years ago, so we enjoyed seeing a couple of “old” friends too!

Virginia Beach has a lot of farmland. One thing we enjoyed during the 2.5 years we lived there was the strawberries! I picked my own berries and made jam, and we also attended the annual Strawberry Festival. On our last morning in Va. Beach, we headed out to Pungo in search of some strawberry fields. It didn’t take Ben long to remember the roads! Though the original forecast was for rain, God granted us a beautiful morning to be outside!

I was really excited to pick strawberries this year because it’s been over two years since I did any canning, and also because I had signed up to make some jam for our church’s Ladies Luncheon at the end of this month.

The kids enjoyed it too! I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story. This year I had four kids who thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and this is one momma who had a lot of clean up to do afterwards!

Ben had all four kids in tow, showing them which strawberries to pick. He showed them how to pluck the berries off the stem, too, but I ended up with a lot of mangled strawberries anyway!

Liberty. She hasn’t touched a strawberry in her life. I have tried. She always spits them out at me. But it didn’t take her long to get excited about picking and eating her own berries. They become independent at a young age, right?!?!

Nehemiah. He picked this white berry and ate the whole thing – leaf and all – before anyone could stop him. Then he discovered the red ones, and he was unstoppable!