My Strawberry Adventure

Okay, since we're moving to a very tiny town next month I wanted to try and stock up some frozen fruit for the winter. I waited until the farmers market had their strawberries on sale and then I went and got some.

8 flats to be exact, at 2.66 per flat. I wanted to wait till they were $2 a flat but i am sick of waiting so I settled for 2.66 thats still freaking cheap.

This was my very last gigantic bowl full of perfect strawberries hulled and ready to slice and freeze. I was trashed by the time this bowl came around. It was actually the 4th time it had been filled.

Then the slicing, I started out doing the first few flats slicing them normally but that was taking forever so I started quartering them and it went much faster.

Now while I was hulling all of the strawberries, I was also sorting them from perfect slicing ones, to extremely ripe perfect for jamming. So all of the imperfect ones got tossed in the blender for a few quick pulses to make some yummy freezer jam.

I was so tired and my tail bone is still a little sore from 2 weeks ago so I took a break and went outside with Braxton to play for a few minutes. The clouds were beautiful, there was a storm rolling in and you could smell the rain coming into the 105 degree evening. We didn't get any of that rain it went around us. But I was happy just with the smell, it was so refreshing.

The wind was blowing pretty strong in bursts, which was a little odd. But it kept blowing our neighbors palm tree branches into our yard. Right as brax climbed up onto the slide the branch to the left was blown over and touched his head, it scared him, cause he knew it wasn't me and no one else was in the yard. Joking around with him I said " watch out that tree just might grab you." Well that was the wrong thing to say a 2yr old. He eyed that tree the rest of the time making sure it didn't "grab him." He would also yell at it from time to time. :)

I had to reassure him that it was okay and that it wasn't the tree, but the wind that blew the tree over to him.

Cooper was also pretty chill, I glanced over thinking that both dogs were in they're bed napping and saw cooper laying like this on the couch. Not sleeping I might add, just chillin' in this position. It must of been pretty comfortable.

Brax was so silly, the only way to keep him content was to let him "help me."

I'm pretty sure he ate more then he helped with.

Helping me stir the sugar into the jam

and the his most exciting moment! When I gave him a "Sword" to slice the strawberries with me.

I also made another huge score at the farmers market, while we were there, they were switching out their apples. I was looking and their prices were about the same as the stores so I started to walk away when an old man (a customer) grabbed my arm and said " you better grab that box of apples its only $3!!!" I looked at him a little confused and said "$3 really?" So I stood by the boxes and got the attention of one of the stock boys and asked him how much they were and sure enough the whole box was only $3. I asked him why and if the bottom ones were bad or something and said no and that they were just rotating produce and had too many apples. So I grabbed the box and at check out told my friend that I was there with that the whole box was $3 and that there was only 1 left. Well no brainer she took it. Oh and by the way, they were all Fuji apples and they were so crisp and so sweet I'm still having trouble believing that I got the whole box for that price.

So I have been trying to decide what to do with all these apples. I left all my canning stuff up in Idaho. The box was completely full when I got it I just forgot to take a picture when I got home and plus I shared some with my neighbors.

So far I have made a gallon of applesauce which I froze and I'm planning on making a few apple pies to freeze also.

It was such a relief to finally see this sight, all 64 quarts of strawberry containers and 12 pints of blueberry containers empty, which by the way were on sale at the grocery store this week for $1 a pint.

In the end I had 31 quarts of sliced frozen strawberries, 8 quarts of frozen blueberries, 21 2cup containers of Strawberry Jam, 2 containers of strawberry peach jam, 2 containers of strawberry blueberry jam and 2 1/2 gallon containers of apple sauce.

I also still have 8 cups of strawberry puree in my fridge that I will be freezing in ice cube trays for Brandon's smoothies every morning. And also 16 cups of chopped strawberries for frozen strawberry cream pies which I will be making tomorrow afternoon because I'm a genius and forgot to buy 2 of the main ingredients for making them. :)

Yesterday afternoon I jumped on craigslist just to check it out and got this perfect condition hiking child carrier and over the shoulder diaper bag along with an unopened baby Einstein DVD.

I would of never been able to get them because they were in Maricopa an hour away from me, but I had a thought to call brandon to see where he was selling that day and sure enough he was in Maricopa. So I called him and asked him if I got them if he could pick them up for me. And lucky us, we got them, and all because I told the lady we could be there asap. Even better Brandon was only 2 minutes away from her house eating lunch when I called him with the address. How Lucky is that!!