By Audrey Kletscher Helbling

The car bumped along the hilly, narrow one-lane gravel drive, past fenced apple trees, past workers hoeing weeds under the already hot mid-morning sun, past rows of raspberry bushes.

Over a creek and then, before us, a strawberry field snuggled on all sides by trees along the Straight River bottom.

We — my husband, oldest daughter and I—had come to Straight River Farm just outside of Faribault to pick strawberries.

This has become an annual family outing, this gathering of plump red berries, this contest to see who picks the most.

As we bent low to the earth, we talked, popped juicy Jewel berries into our mouths, marveled at their size and flavor.

Laughter came easily here in this place of quiet, of sky and earth and river and berries.

All too soon we were finished, our cardboard flats heaping with the fruits of our labors.

As we loaded our boxes into the car, the sound of rushing water drew me to the river bank. Muddy water churned in a fast-moving current.

Then, movement in the grass. A tiny spotted frog leapfrogging in swift bounds through the tall stems, over a pile of logs and back toward the river.

Back in the farmyard, the ceremonial weighing of our boxes to see who would claim the honor of picking the most berries. Gentle teasing as the weigh-in progressed, with mom — that would be me — the winner, having harvested 12-plus pounds of strawberries.

With 33.2 pounds of fruit safely tucked inside the trunk, we headed home, knowing the best part of our day lay behind us. Now we had hours of work ahead—berries to wash, hull, slice, package. I had pie crust to mix and roll, pies to make.

Later that evening, as I parceled reserved fresh berries into containers for my daughter and packed her strawberry pie, I thought about how sweet this day had been. Amber had driven down from Minneapolis to be with us, to continue our family tradition of picking strawberries.

Could life get any sweeter?

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