Strawberries.

Last fall we planted a large bed of fresh strawberries, that I looked forward to immensely.  They survived through the exceptionally cold winter involving mounds of snow and below zero temperatures. When spring came, I cried for joy that they were still alive and looked forward to an abundance of amazing Oregon strawberries.

But at the first sight of a red berry, I became terrified that other critters might get to them.  I am not that generous, so we bought a net to put over the strawberries so that we would be sure to be the only ones enjoying our harvest.  One day I we realized that we were not really getting enough berries.  Five a day does not seem sufficient enough to feed a family of four. I thought maybe the critters had found their way through our heavy barricades.

Then one day, we discovered that birds and squirrels were NOT our problem, but grubby hands of  two little boys who have no strawberry self control whatsoever. We learned that every day when they went out to play they found themselves at the strawberry bed, and every day they put their fists through the net and pulled out every strawberry they could find, weather white green or red, and as they pulled them up through the net, they smashed them with strawberry juice everywhere. Very little fruit was actually getting into anyone's mouth. Although the children were filled with joy, my heart would sink at each green strawberry that got eaten that never got a chance to be filling my tummy with goodness.

I fought with them relentlessly.  I squealed, I threatened and I tried to punish. But they would NOT stop eating the green strawberries. I begged and pleaded. One day I just gave up.

I gave up when I decided the best thing to do was to look at my two year old's face and fists, covered with red juice.  I decided to listen carefully to the small voice saying "mama I like strawberries" as he shoveled about eight green ones into his mouth. I suddenly thought that the sight of this child brought me so much more joy than any strawberry could bring me.  Even an Oregon strawberry. So I will always be able to hold this memory in my mind of the greedy children and laugh.  So maybe I did not get to enjoy very many strawberries from the garden, but the strawberry garden gave me something a memory to cherish.