Strawberry fields!

 Around summertime, most farms in the US open their gates to the public allowing them to pick fruits and berries off their fields. U-pick farms are a great way for the kids to enjoy a ‘fruitful’ time together with their families, have a ‘field’ day berry picking and filling up their buckets while simultaneously snacking on them!! Over the weekend, we went to a nearby farm and had Abhay pick strawberries with his best friend Suhas. As usual, the two boisterous boys began competing with each other over who picked the most and the end result being we end up with over 5 pints of strawberries!   So thanks to Abhay’s berry picking contest, we are having strawberries for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next two weeks!! All are welcome :-)

 Since we went berry picking, I had to read the book “Blueberries for Sal” again! Written by the celebrated children’s book author Robert Mckloskey, this one never fails to bring a smile to my face every time I read it! An endearing story of a little girl named Sal who sets out to pick blueberries with her mother so that they have enough blueberries to can them for the next winter. While picking the berries, little Sal cannot resist putting them into her mouth instead of filling up her bucket. As her mother chides her, she moves away from her mother to yield to her craving. On the other side, a little bear climbs up the hill accompanying his mother who in turn asks him to eat as much as possible and stuff himself enough to be ready for hibernation for the winter. Not able to catch up with their own quick paced moms, both Sal and the little bear end up following each other’s  and the rest is history. I have probably read this book to Abhay a million times, but each time, the story seems even more charming for Abhay to want more of Sal and her blueberry tale. Besides, we could relate to the story all the more as we went berry picking too. But in our story, we instead had two little bears  picking strawberries :-)