Wild Strawberry Patch

Recently, I stopped beside the road and bought some big, juicy strawberries from a young couple who was selling them. "Fresh picked strawberries for sale" the sign said. I stopped and pulled off to the side of the road and went to see what they had.  I bought me a couple gallon and drove home happy as a hound dog with a ham bone…I started counting the number of jars of strawberry jam I thought I may  have with these beauties.

     While I was washing and capping them, my mind went back to when my brothers and I could not wait for the wild strawberries to get ripe in our childhood. .  Just about the time school was out for the summer those berries were ready for picking. We had a field near our home and every year a large patch of berries came up. However, it did not matter how large the field was, those little berries were not. Some were about the size of your pinky fingernail. Very few were as large as a thumbnail… It took hours to pick enough for our mom to make us some strawberry dumplings. We would go very early in the morning and pick until the sun was high in the sky.  So tired from stooping all day we slowly trekked home. But we knew it would be worth it when we had those dumplings for supper.

We were not the only ones to pick, our mom would pick with us when she was not working. It always amazed me how many mom could pick, and how much faster she filled her large container while I was still filling my small one. We knew why she was picking and were happy to help her. Now, I ask you, how many of you have ever had a homemade biscuit all hot, buttered, and filled with some of your mama's wild strawberry jam? There is nothing to compare to it. I still remember the pans we used to hold those wild strawberries in as we picked. They were little white pans with a red rim around the opening and probably held a couple pints.

I made me some dumplings with the strawberries I bought from the young couple, and they were delicious. But they did not come close to tasting as good as the ones my mama made with them little  berries we picked that grew wild on Parksville Knob…I wonder! Do those wild strawberries still grow there?