Strawberry Picking: Child Labor is Overrated

The strawberries are finally ripe here in Central Wisconsin and I finally decided I was going to get my ass out to a strawberry farm and pick me some berries. There is something almost religious about the treks to these self-pick places. I have no idea if they are a great price savings from the farmers' market. I paid $32 for four gallons, which is about $8 a gallon, or $4 a half gallon, which is $2 a quart--so the price is at least comparable to super market prices.

But the berries. Oh, my lord, the berries. They are bright red, ripe, sweet, and delicious. I told my kids (8 and 10) that we were going berry picking and they sort of agreed but looked at me like I was a little crazy when I suggested we leave at 8 a.m. on a Thursday morning. They had a friend spending the night but I figured an extra pair of hands wouldn't hurt so I brought him along.

We left the house closer to 11 a.m.

The weather was beautiful. Not too hot or too sunny but warm and partly cloudy. We drove 20 minutes to a small patch set in idyllic farm country. The patch was well staffed, clean, mowed with well-tended fields and portable toilets with hand washing stations. A pleasant, barefoot guy in a wide-brimmed straw hat drove us up the hill in a golf cart and handed us our buckets.

I asked for four, because there were four of us. But honestly, I was trying to calculate how long I could keep my kids outside, working on their hands and knees before the first complaint was aired (10 minutes) and how many buckets we could fill up before they went all Cesar Chavez on me so I settled on four one gallon buckets.

The farmer pointed out a red flag and our row and told us to split up and work towards each other. He later explained to me this was so I could go back over the kids' picking in case they missed any berries. This turned out to be a good idea.

My son filled a bucket half-way. His friend, a sturdier little fellow managed to mostly fill his before my son's face started getting red (despite my attempt at slathering him with sunscreen before we left). My daughter, bless her, was a born field hand--maybe the act of berry picking appealed to our shared OCD tendencies. She and I filled my bucket and hers and then topped off the boys' buckets in about 40 minutes total.

I really thought I'd get more work out of them. Small hands, young backs and knees and they failed me, utterly. They were hot, itchy with mosquito bites and probably hungry for lunch. Granted we're not outdoorsy folks, my son especially. But they're old enough to tell a ripe berry from unripe and to avoid the mushy ones. They're just lacking in stamina.

I could have probably picked some more before we left but since I don't can, and I need to figure out what to do with these besides eating them right out of the flats and making strawberry shortcake. The clock is ticking on the gallons of berries in my fridge. Don't they look beautiful?