Child Labor Laws Do Not Apply

Recently I decided to try my hand at being little Suzie Homemaker. I can't say I'm really succeeding...however I'm doing my best. One of the things that I have always wanted to try is canning. My friend, Celest, is big into canning and I have always admired her dedication to making healthy, homemade foods for her family. Since strawberry season is here, she suggested that we make some strawberry jam and has been kind enough to offer up her home and her brain to teach me all of the tricks of the trade. Over the course of a week or two we picked about 50lbs of strawberries from a local patch (see pics below of my adventures with Lili and our friends Dixie and Lindsey) and made 30+ jars of jam, 12 containers of freezer jam and tried our hand at some fruit leather as well. It was so much fun! Our next adventure will hit at the end of the month when we go raspberry picking and then I believe we head into green beans mid July. Jam was 'easy' compared to some of the things we are planning to make at the end of the summer, so we'll see how I do with that. We all know my patience level, on a scale of 1 to 10 is about a 1...

I LOVE this picture of Lili...she was SO happy to be outside, with her buddy Lindsey, doing something new and exciting!

Lindsey was loving the 'freedom' too and I finally got her to smile at the camera!

See Mom? It's a baby strawberry!

The girls did AWESOME picking. They stayed in their row...tried not to pick the 'babies' and if they came across an icky one, they just yelled 'Ew yuck!' and whipped it across the field!

This one reminded me of child labor laws...and how we should probably be careful barking orders and keeping them out in the hot sun too long...

Yep, that's a turtle. In a strawberry patch. The owner's son who was directing people was even surprised to see the little guy there. Did you know that turtles can actually 'run' pretty fast when they really want to?

Get down there Lili and keep pickin'!

30lbs+...