There are some things that are so deeply rooted in my memory that a scent or a sound can bring me right back to my childhood years.
Last week Jamie and I were driving home from Wisconsin and we saw a sign for a U-Pick strawberry farm, something I did really often as a child and into my teenage years. It was a summer ritual. As Jamie and I pulled in to the field I rolled down the window and one of those nostalgic smells came wafting in. On really hot summer days the berries get a little sun baked, and the whole field smells like strawberry jam…its one of the best things ever.
Growing up I’d always go with Grandpa Al, often also with Grandma Vi and my dad. It was usually a whole day affair starting around 6am. We would take out the back seats of Grandpa’s van and bring about 30 ice cream buckets to fill with berries (don’t ask where we got the buckets, but someone was eating a whole lot of ice cream). We would drive ‘across the line’ as Grandpa would say (to the States) because then we could also fill up with gas while we were down there, and one of the strawberry farms down there also took Canadian dollars at par with American…score. I didn’t mind because we would always stop at this small dairy for ice cream on the way home and let me tell you, this was the best fresh soft serve vanilla ice cream on earth. Usually we’d have an unspoken (or spoken) competition to see who could fill their buckets the fastest, and if I remember correctly I’d always win…although I’m sure that statement would meet with some heavy debate. At the time I didn’t appreciate those days as much as I do now. I did enjoy it, but now I just cherish those memories so dearly! I’m sure that for the rest of my life when I smell strawberries I’ll think of my Grandpa Al.When we got home we ate some on ice cream with hot fudge (amazing), sliced some up and froze them for the winter, and then I made the rest into 6 gorgeous jars of fresh strawberry jam. Heavenly.