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Friday, June 29, 2007

The Link Between Strawberry Picking and Chinchillas

I was so touched when I read that Hedda Dabbler had created a verse of Old McDonald in honor of my older son's (OS) imaginary chinchilla. Thank you so much! It's not every day that your imaginary chinchilla gets recognized! He thanks you as well. Fortunately, we haven't seen too much of the chinchilla recently since he tends to come out when OS is extremely silly and is in the mood to harass either his younger brother (YS) or the dog.

Since living here, I have learned that a lot of people I know like to pick berries. That threw me for a loop when I first heard about it. It sounded like it could possibly be fun or possibly be a lot of work and leave you with a bad sun burn and dirt under your fingernails for the next 4 weeks; not to mention crying kids, and also what did everyone do with all those berries?

The first year I heard about it, OS wasn't walking yet and I was told that it really wasn't any place for a stroller. Last year when my moms group went strawberry picking I was a week away from having YS. After envisioning myself giving birth in the strawberry fields, I decided that despite the fact that it would definitely be a unique birthing story to tell my grandchildren, giving birth in a bed (or in my case in the OR) was a lot better so I nixed the idea. This year I was assured that it would be a good activity for YS even though he just turned a year last week and doesn't walk. Ahh... second-borns.

Actually, YS seemed to like it better than OS. Let me also say that the place was very kid friendly. YS crawled through rows of strawberries and helped himself to them. And no, the end point was not the cardboard berry box, but rather his stomach. OS started out picking his own strawberries, but then realized it was much better to take the strawberries I had put in the big cardboard box, dump them in his own small quart container and then show everyone how many strawberries he had gotten. He kind of left out the part about how he didn't actually pick any of them. A politician in the making?

It turns out with this place, you just pay for what you pick. I had thought it was like apple picking where you pay for the bag regardless of how many apples are in it. It was $1.75 a pound so we picked a a quart for us and a quart for our neighbors. As for the link between strawberry picking and chinchillas, okay there really isn't one. I do however have a lesson learned. Some one gave me this fabulous tip today, and it really worked. Again as with all cleaning types, those of you who know me in "real life" please don't ruin my good name by telling people I posted a cleaning tip on my blog. I have a reputation to uphold after all :)

A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: To remove strawberry juice from clothing, wash the items in hot water as soon as possible.

posted by Alex Elliot @ 9:38 PM 4 comments

4 Comments:

At 6/30/2007 9:55 AM, super des said…

I love strawberries. I grew up around blackberry bushes, and that's definitely NOT for kids because of all the thorns. Strawberries are good for that.
:)
At 6/30/2007 12:15 PM, Jodi said…

That picture is precious. We can never go strawberry picking b /c my son is allergic.
At 7/02/2007 10:00 AM, Nancy said…

We never did the apple picking or the strawberry picking thing when I was a kid either - Must be that Midwest thing :)

But my kids love it! And I will admit that I have a good time, too. (Great picture btw)
At 7/02/2007 5:19 PM, Suzanne said…

I didn't go to farms to pick berries, but we had strawberries and raspberries in our yard and I loved picking them. Especially the raspberries. Cute picture or YS, BTW.

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Name:	Alex Elliot
Home:	MA, United States
About Me:	Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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