#20--Homemade Jelly

Strawberry rhubarb pie--yep, I just had to sample before serving to others!

Growing up, every year my mom, Aunt Charlene, and grandma would pile in the car and head to a strawberry farm.  We'd then proceed to spend the day picking, cleaning, and preparing various strawberry things.  These are fond memories for me, although I'm sure I whined a time or do when helping with such an undertaking as a tot.

So this week, both in an attempt to complete another item off my checklist of 35 things to do at the age of 35 AND to continue the tradition of picking strawberries, the wee ones and I piled into the car and headed to Grayson's Berryland in Clear Lake.  It was a cool, cloudy day, perfect for picking.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the kids picking.  My hands were red and sticky from picking.  But here are some photos of the berries we picked.

We picked two of these boxes

All cleaned and de-tailed:)

Two 10-lb. boxes of strawberries gives a person A LOT of berries!  In addition to making a double batch of freezer jelly, I made two loaves of strawberry bread, strawberry smoothies, two rhubarb strawberry pies (yum!), and then still have a few berries around just for snacking.  

What a fun time (mostly for me--the kids only liked it a little).  It feels good to make something from scratch and to think back to the days of the women on my mom's side spending the day together around a bucket of berries.  

Jelly in the pot