One of the things that we did while the bigs were in Georgia cleaning up after the tornado, was to go to a nearby U-Pick field…
where we were in search of
yummy red strawberries!
When we arrived, the field owners handed each of the kids a small black bucket to place their picked berries in. We were then assigned a row to pick.
Since we went to the field on a Monday, and they are closed on Sundays, we had easy picking since the berries had had a day of rest to ripen. 
It only took one row to fill 6 buckets.
Since it was 80 degrees out, and we had gone around lunch time, we called it good after picking one whole row, even though we didn’t quite make it to the 50 pounds we had intended on picking! (this picture is for you Chuck – it signifies our being done picking strawberries and moving on… 😉 !)
The owners weighed each bucket; a full bucket weighs 6 or 7 pounds. We had picked 40 pounds (at $1/lb)…
We also picked up a few other veggies – each for $.50.
Once we were home, the kids worked hard at cleaning strawberries. And eating strawberries. Eating lots of strawberries!
Then we all worked together to do all the chores that come with making strawberry jam. Like putting lids in hot water to soak.
Emma wanted to be in charge of chopping the strawberries up in the VitaMix…
Molly’s all important job was to ensure that the organic sugar was sweet enough…
We made a few batches each of both low sugar (preferred) and regular. Next year I will pack low sugar pectin from home since it’s not easy to find it everywhere (like in Wauchula, FL). My jam has never been foamy before, so I don’t know what the difference was making it down here – something they spray the strawberries with?altitude? 
We had such a great time picking our 40 pounds on Monday, that we went again yesterday. This time we took Daddy, Eli, and Beth with us…
We again picked 40 pounds, but this time it was a lot more work since we were there after the fields had been being picked all week! The berries were a lot more sparse, but we still had a great time.
And we again made jam once we got home – all together we made 54 cups of jam (different sized jars). Which should be just enough to get us through until we pull into our summer camp hosting site at the end of May (and I get back to all my canning supplies! – whose idea was it to take the lid magnet, funnel, and extra lids out of the RV anyway???). 
We had a fun time picking strawberries
-and will definitely do this again next year! …well, if we make it to FL again! Still so much of the country to see, so little time (and none of it guaranteed)!
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