A mishap + more berries

Wow, what a whirlwind the last few days have been!

And by whirlwind, I mean that I have learned much about 1) why one should not keep open jars of black calligraphy ink close by, especially when one tends to gesture wildly with her hands 2) what household products help lift said ink out of carpet and 3) how to rent and operate a Rug Doctor machine.

An adventure, to be sure. I will tell you more once I've reached a conclusion about this minor mishap. I was grateful to have a schedule over the past few days that allowed me to balance setting aside time to tackle the repair effort with doing fun things to take a break, like Sunday's trip to the lake.

And today's trip to pick strawberries! With a few days away from the office, I was elated when I saw that one of my family's favorite local berry farms was opening for business this week. I haven't been in ages and wrangled my mom into going with me. We waited for half an hour early this morning in what I perceived to be a line of excited cars, and then we were assigned to a row and started picking!

This was the first haul that I saw (not ours yet). This is so Minnesota in the summer, right?

The strawberries are late, late, late this year, but it was worth the wait, because this crop was beautiful: big and bright red. Mom needed more strawberries than I did so she could assemble her famous Fourth of July flag cake, so she got to work while I alternated picking berries with taking pictures.

She kept finding big heart-shaped berries!

After about 30 minutes, we had worked our way to the end of our row and had full pallets.

Here's two-thirds of our haul!

I brought eight pounds of strawberries home with me today. I have eight pounds of strawberries in my possession. Well, maybe 7.5 by now. When I got home, Wish was dying to know what all the fuss was about, so I gave him a berry and he ran off with it as if it were a major prize. I found him in the bedroom practically cradling the berry, and then it disappeared. He is a berry fan, just like the rest of his household.

Now I turn to Google to find new ways to use up the berries besides my tried-and-true favorites: gobbling them raw and mashing them up to pour over vanilla ice cream. What are your favorite strawberry recipes? Please share!