Strawberry picking

There came a time when we all loaded up and traveled some distance to a place that had fields of strawberries as far as a child's eye could see. As our parents spoke with the owners of those lucious fruits we kids were told where to stand and wait til they were through talking. The nice lady told us to not eat too many as we picked them but our Mama told us you better not eat even one of them or we would get a whipping. After having the fear of God put in us, we all went to our assigned row with the buckets in hand and began picking. There was no fooling around allowed either as we knew better without being told that little tidbit of info. We picked strawberries a very long time it seemed and it had begun to get hot. My oldest brother was sent for the water bucket and dipper. He was told to fill it with water form the spigot. We were each allowed one dipper full of water to drink. That way no one would be asking to go pee. We picked four tubs of strawberries and went home with two. These would be #3 tubs which is the old big wash tubs. The nice lady asked us if we liked the taste of her strawberries and we all looked at her with big eyes and I told her that we weren't allowed to eat any of them yet as they hadn't been paid for yet. I didn't know at that time that we had picked the berries for her so we didn't have to pay for ours. I learned about bartering that day. We traveled home with our share of the strawberries without much to say as we were a tired group of children. Upon our arrival home we were told that rest time was over now and it was time to get to work. The strawberries had to be gently washed and hulled then put in bags for the freezer. That was a lot of hard work and we finally finished about dark thirty. The next day being Sunday, we went to church and back home to have dinner. Company came over that afternoon and the ice cream churns were filled, iced, and rock salted down. The older children were given the task of turning the handles to make the ice cream. It seemed to take forever to freeze and we all anxiously awaited our bowl of home made ice cream. Of course the company was served first and wer were given ours afterward. I had a little taste of heaven with that treat and didn't seem to mind all the hard work involved with what it took to get it. I ate and ate til my tummy said it was too full. After finding out that one of the churns was ours we would bring it out and the icecream makings and make our own. Mama made all different kinds of ice cream. Any fruit can be made into ice cream and we all discovered we each had our own favorite flavor. I liked the peach ice cream the best. This was one of the good times I remember from my childhood when everyone seemed to be happy and enjoy life. There were other times that were happy and next time I'll tell you about the Easter Egg hunt. Until then I leave you with Just This...Alice