Have I told you about how the Husband is officially a farmhand? I honestly don't remember if I ever mentioned it last year, and if I go look, I'll spend the rest of the night reading my old posts and marveling at my ability to blithely ignore typos in my own writing despite years of work as a copy editor. At any rate, last summer he worked part-time at a farm in the same town where my library of employ is located. This summer, he started working there before his semester was over, and he's now working upwards of 30 hours a week there.
I'm sure you'd guess this, but it's really hard work. For the past two weeks, he has spent significant portions of time driving metal stakes into the ground so that they can be strung with twine to serve as trellises. This in the kind of heat that renders me a wilted, whiny heap of sweat. He's on his way to being totally ripped, and I've taken to calling him Farm Boy and asking him to fetch me pitchers.
One of the jobs that he totally dreaded by the end of June last year was picking strawberries. He claimed that he would close his eyes at night and see red dots. I totally believed him. Why wouldn't I? I hadn't been strawberry picking since I was about 7 years old, when I basically wandered around complaining about bugs while my mom and grandma did all the work. So I should have been suspicious last week when he was all "Wouldn't it be fun to go strawberry picking on Sunday? We'll pick a ton, and make lots of jam!" He swore that it's only back-breaking for him because he has to do it quickly, and that we would be leisurely, and besides, didn't I end up loving blueberry picking last year?
Strawberries, however, are not like other berries. They don't grow in giant bushes, for one. They grow really near to the ground so that you have to hunch and stoop to reach them. Actually that's pretty much the major difference - other than the fact that, technically speaking, they aren't true berries, but science is for nerds - but that one difference is enough. The Husband wanted to pick through an entire 100-yard row, so as to be helpful to the farm even while picking casually, so we picked for several hours. That's a lot of hunching and stooping
Before we left, I realized that I didn't cover the back of my shoulders well enough with sunscreen and that I had sunburn patches. When we had been home for about an hour, I scratched my back, and realized that I had a fairly bad sunburn on the spot between where my pants had slipped down and my shirt had ridden up while hunching. On the bright side, I can say with certainty that my buttcrack was securely covered, since it was still as pale as, well, a fair-skinned Polish lady's butt. On the downside, in order to keep my buttcrack securely covered, I had to keep putting clothing over my poor, throbbing, lobster skin. Aloe can only do so much.
When we had been home for about two hours, I realized that we should probably do something with 30-plus pints of berries, if only so that we could see the table again. Some we froze. Some were made into jam fairly quickly. Some were reserved to be eaten fresh. Some are still sitting in the refrigerator, where I am half hoping that they will mysteriously disappear in the night.
I know it doesn't sound like it, but I genuinely did have fun. Next time, I may suggest that we not do a picking marathon, or at least I will make sure all my skin is covered and/or slathered in sunscreen. But I don't doubt there will be a next time (though maybe not till next year, since strawberries are peaking early here.)
So why am I sharing this with you? First, I want to share my suspicion that the Husband thought that I thought he was wimpy for complaining about strawberries. If I ever did think that, even for a second, I apologize sincerely. Anyone who picks them for many hours in the hot sun, particularly after putting in some stake-pounding time, is truly mighty. Second, I want to state for the record that the next person I hear at the farmer's market talking about how expensive the strawberries are is going to get smacked upside the head. Possibly with a metal stake.
