The First Fruits of Summer

A while ago, our youngest daughter Maggie and I made rhubarb juice using our Mehu -Liisa which is a Finnish juice extractor pot thing. It works really great.

We also made 4 batches of strawberry jam and 2 big batches of strawberry sauce using berries that we bought from Nelson-Shine produce.

Nelson's is where we bring our chickens for processing. Shannon and I brought our chickens there one Sunday to be processed, and found them just starting strawberry season. One of Ron and Barb’s older boys, 23 year old Nick has just been discharged from the National Guard after two tours in Iraq. He and his bride have decided to start farming near the family home. In the meantime, they have bought a few cows and started a strawberry operation on Nick’s home place.These berries had just been picked as we arrived in Brainerd. Maggie and I made 2 batches of jam and sauce on Monday. It was so good that when Jack and I went to retrieve the frozen birds, we bought 2 more flats of berries! Those I made into a big batch of stawberry sauce.