50.75 POUNDS OF STRAWBERRIES

What do you do when you live in Wisconsin and there are approaching afternoon tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, large hail, and damaging wind advisories??? You make sure you go strawberry picking FIRST. We couldn't let the biggest and best strawberries get damaged by potential threating weather, so the kids and I set off to go strawberry picking at the Heritage Berry Farms south of Mauston. It's a family run place that doesn't spray pesticides. They do a lot of hard work hand picking the fields to be free of weeds.

Reeve and Kyle had their own baskets and they worked the same row. We were there for just under two hours and had a blast. I know the kids ate about 5lbs while they were picking. Kyle confessed he did eat more than he picked. He kept asking, "Reeve which one should I eat? Reeve which one should I eat now?" The strawberries were so big and juicy this year! We lucked out and got there on the very first day of picking :-).

Together the kids picked 3 flats and I picked 3 flats for a grand total of 50.75 pounds of yummy, delicious, fresh strawberries.

We saved some for my friend Lisa who is always helping us out! She's helped me get a few jobs, given me loads of practical advice, and now she's recommended Tom for a couple of HVAC jobs. THANK YOU LISA... YOU ROCK :-). Reeve and Kyle were worn out trying to get Lisa's dogs to chase them around her yard. They love to play with those dogs.

We also saved some for Brenda, who is constantly giving us free range eggs from her chickens. When we went over to Brenda's yesterday we got to see one of the chickens actually lay and egg! The kids thought that was so cool, and the best part was the "I laid an egg" clucking song the hen did when she was done. She was so excited and noisy...um maybe that's because we took the egg out of her nest??
Brenda also has a new 8 week adorable LaManch goat named Dolly. She's bottle feeding Dolly and as a result Dolly is the sweetest, friendliest, little darling of a goat that I've ever seen. She's so soft to pet and so gentle. I love her.

Right away she jumped up on the picnic table to eat some strawberries. Luckily they were snatched away. The kids love visiting her 6 goats. I always thought it would be neat to get goats and they could help keep the grass cut, but Brenda says they don't eat grass! They'd rather eat briars in the woods than chew grass.