She Likes Strawberries

I was cutting strawberries for dinner this evening because Nikky and Bella Grace are coming to my house. Bella loves strawberries. Her mom loves strawberries, too. Her Memaw loves strawberries, too. Her great-grandma loved strawberries, too. We come from a long line of strawberry lovers. Every generation in my family has strawberry stories to tell.

My Uncle Skip once put "store bought" berries in his backyard strawberry patch way before time for them to ripen to fool his neighbor into believing his strawberries were growing unbelievably fast. His neighbor believed him, for awhile. Uncle Skip loved a good practical joke. 

My older brothers and sisters spent time picking strawberries in the garden with Mama. They tell how they never liked her in their row because she sat on the berries. She had eight kids, but she, in no way, squatted in a field somewhere and pushed them out. She could not squat, so she wore berry stains on the flowing skirt of her shirt waist dress during strawberry season. 

Nikky, my daughter, loved berries so much she would go into her "Packaw's" (Grandpa's) garden with him and pick them before the birds flew in to feast on their juicy lushness. One day, I walked out of Mama and Daddy's porch to see how they were doing in the back yard. Daddy was laughing as Nikky raced toward the house screaming while blue jays circled her head, diving at her just close enough to fill her heart with terror. She looked like a frightened refugee, running for her life. That was how the blue jays and mocking birds said, "Get out of our garden!" Sometimes Daddy's sense of humor was a bit skewed. I on the other hand, rescued her speedily, and never let her see me chuckle. She was not a berry picker after that, but she still loved to eat them. 

On one of our summer vacations when Nikky was quite young and my niece Stacy traveled with us, we stopped at a fruit stand on a country road in upstate New York and bought a cereal box, cut open on the wide side of the box to be a container for strawberries, full of ripe, juicy, deep, red berries. They were amazing. We ate the entire box before we reached the next town. We didn't care back then whether they were washed or not.

Well, I have to go in the kitchen and finish cooking dinner. Maybe I'll make sweet biscuits to serve with the strawberries. I have some chocolate whipped cream in the refrigerator, too. Yum. After all, Bella's coming over, and I sure am glad she likes strawberries.

"He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit." John 15:2

Peace. Love, Linda