The Summer of Ezra

It's strawberry time again here in Ohio, and my mom is here to help out--in countless ways, but tonight it's with strawberries. On a Tuesday night a year ago, we did exactly the same thing. We stayed up late, after I had come home from work, coring and slicing berries I'd bought that day and preparing batches of jam to make the next day. But baby Ezra arrived the next day, so mom handled nearly all the strawberry work.

Ezra is a year old this week, and here we are putting up strawberries again. Amazing! And what I love most is that Ezra loves strawberries. If he didn't, it all just wouldn't make sense somehow.

Today we trekked to the Wyoming farmers' market for a flat--my second this season--and the entire affair was a thousand times easier than last year. A morning spent at the zoo had exhausted the boys, and so they slept in their car seats, and Grandma Cole sat with them, while I trotted down the street to claim my berries. We returned home with still-sleeping kids--amazing! Tonight we put up two jam batches to finish tomorrow, and prepared the rest for freezing. And dinner featured a lovely salad of romaine and strawberries with a poppy seed dressing. All in all, a banner day.

Though you're surely not a grade-A strawberry fiend like me, I must recommend the berries from Branstrator Farm, near Wilmington, Ohio. They're as close to perfect as you'll ever find, with every one a model berry.