Strawberry Fields

Tess is finally better and we have an OUTING today! Details to come....

Today's Outing:

Strawberry picking at Hartland Farm and Orchard! We planned to meet up with some friends for a fun-filled morning of berry hunting. YUM--fresh strawberries! Perfect for VTing gifts, general snacking, and making strawberry jam with Wendy!

Tess had a fever-less day yesterday and she was ready to get out of the house. It's gorgeous today--perfect for a drive to the Virginia countryside!

It's about an hour drive to the berries, so I prepped accordingly for the journey. Tess' favorite songs in the car, extra diapers, snacks, drinks, treats. Tess was very excited for our "trip."

The whole way there, we talked about how yummy strawberries are when you pick them from a plant. (Tess' commentary: "UMMMMM, Braberries taste GOOOD!") And how much better they taste than those from a store. (Tess' commentary: "Blech, Braberries!") Tess also loved the idea of making strawberries into jam with Nana. "I stir it. I cook it. A stove. On toast. On top. Yum!"

We finally arrived after a long, but enjoyable journey. Tess was excited to take her little basket and find a strawberry. She found one!

Then she was done. And had a major meltdown.

You see, I made a fatal error when trying to describe the outing to Tess. I told her we were going to pick strawberries at an orchard.

"Apple trees?" she asked. (Don't ask me HOW she knows that orchards contain apple trees.)

"Yes, they have apple trees. But we are going to pick strawberries. It's kind of like a strawberry farm."

Don't you see my HUGE mistake? Farm. FARM to Tess = cows, pigs, goats, horses and a farmer. All the way there she kept talking about the animals at the farm and how she was going to pet them ("with a fingers") and feed them.

Their website did have a pictures of a few animals, so I thought there could possibly be an animal or two there. But I told her the whole way there, "I don't know if they have animals or not. If they have some, you can pet them, but I don't know if they have animals."

As if that disclaimer meant anything to Tess.

So, she picks one strawberry and wants to see the animals. No animals in my range of vision, but I told her would see if they had animals after we finished picking strawberries.

Kaboom. Major meltdown of the century.

A friend offers to take the girls off to play, but nothing will appease Tess. I hand my 10 strawberries to a friend and we head back to the car for the hour trip home.

Half-way home, Tess starts screaming, "My BRABERRIES!!! My BRABERRIES!!!"

We may be heading to Safeway this afternoon for some "blech berries."