The Power of the U-Pick Ritual

Every year without fail, I get excited about the beginning of the fruit picking season all over again. At the end of the year when we have finished the blueberries and the apples and I finally get through processing them all, I think it will be so nice to have a long break from the whole cycle. From picking through processing and packaging for storage it demands no small amount of time and effort. But it never fails, that, as May/June rolls around the excitement builds over the beginning of the rhubarb then the strawberries. My mom used to take us strawberry picking every year as small children and it built a strong connection between earth, food, nature, sustenance, joy….

a bounty of rhubarb from my garden

Honestly I think I can trace much of my obsession with food and nature back to the time I spent as a very young child pulling food from the dirt with my own 2 hands, wiping the grit away on my coveralls and putting it directly into my mouth. Repeating that act as a young child, over and over, year after year solidified deep within me these things:

1) Food is supposed to grow from the earth and not be concocted in some factory

2) Food should be grown in such a way that anyone can safely walk to where it is growing  (even as a child) and pluck it from its plant and put it directly into their mouth

3) It is right and good to get dirty in the acquisition of that which sustains you

4) Nature herself provides all that we need to survive, not the constructs of man, or money, or social structure

the strawberries a Whittaker's Barry Farm in Ida, MI are beautiful

I do realize that it is entirely possible that I have over-romanticized the entire thing, but it is too late for me, I am in love! Every spring, like clockwork, the strawberry fields call to me and I cannot resist.