Strawberries!

It is exceedingly unfair that we get five months of snow here and only three weeks of strawberries.

C was able to pick about 24 quarts the week before last. He froze most of them, plus I made strawberry-rhubarb cake, using way too many strawberries so that the cake part turned to a gluey (but delicious) mess in the bottom of the pan, and the rest we ate as fast as we could, with no time to make jam.

But that wasn't enough, you know? (It's never enough).

So we went out again Sunday afternoon, as a family.

We had the fields to ourselves. It was a hot day with a dry wind that made me feel like I was back home on the plains in Colorado.

I love everything about strawberries. Their color. Their shape. The green fringe around their stems. The tiny yellow seeds dotting their skin. Their three-part, serrated leaves. The way the berries hide out underneath their own foliage. And the flavor, of course. The flavor. Sweet-tart-red-juicy-essence-of-summer-goodness.

We lucked out this summer.

The punishing rains that usually rot the berries on the vine didn't come until this week, after the fields were spent. So we came home with three flats of berries, just shy of ripe so that they would keep on our kitchen counter for a few days, until we could turn our attention to them.

But first, strawberry shortcake.

Z had been in a baking mood Sunday morning, and after I steered him away from cinnamon rolls (yeast! rising! hot oven for an hour!), he settled on scones, which fit perfectly into my strawberry shortcake plans.

He made them almost entirely himself (with a little help on cutting in the butter and getting the whole mess of dough to stick together), following the cookbook and everything. He was so proud he took half-a-dozen pictures (gee, where'd he get that quirk from?).

After dinner, we smothered them with whipped cream and fresh, sweet, red, delicious strawberries. One of the best things about summer, I dare say.