This morning Audrey and I went into the back yard to pick the first strawberries of the year. Picking fresh berries in the morning to mix with yogurt and honey is cathartic, too often my morning routine involves stressing out about all that needs to be accomplished. We don't have very many plants so the strawberries might last 3 weeks - maybe be 6 or 8 breakfasts.

These may not be the best berries I've ever tasted, but I'd rather have these then the largest, juiciest Florida berries. I cultivated the soil, planted the berries, added our own compost, kept them watered -- there are no chemicals or pesticides.

Picking berries has always been a favorite summer activity, we had 8 or 10 rows of strawberries on the farm growing up, and often we'd go to self pick strawberry fields to get enough to make jam -- Cultivated strawberries are great, but nothing compared to the wild berries in the roadside ditches of upstate New York. Every year I'd watch for signs while riding my bicycle to and from school -- every year I'd gorge myself on the tiniest berries and every year I'd get Poison Ivy covering my arms.

Next month the raspberries come into season -- my love of raspberries far outweighs my love of strawberries and my adventures to find wild raspberries growing up equaled that adoration.