HELP!!!

We buy cheap vanilla ice cream, mainly to have around when grandkids want to make a shake; these are the gallon containers the ice cream comes in.  What am I going to do with all these strawberries?  I guess I'll freeze them.  The trouble is, they're only just getting started.  This is just the tip of the iceberg.  

Strawberries like to hide.  Notice all those little green ones waiting to attack me later on?  HELP!  

My daughter's dog, Hawkeye, is staying here while they vacation.  He likes to stay close by his people.  

He sleeps on our front porch when he's here.  I'd let him inside, but he's a walking hair factory.    

Iris stays near me wherever I go, although she does sometimes lounge around the yard while I'm in the house.  
I need to do something with those strawberries; I picked them before 7 o'clock this morning, and it's 1:30 now.  I can't just let them spoil.   

Thankful

As I begin this post, I remind myself how lucky I am that I can blog as I please.  If I bore some of my readers, they might stay away for days (or perhaps forever), but it doesn't matter.  I keep this blather going mainly to please myself.  Sometimes I will add an entry that I know is trite and meaningless (like most of this blog) just because Cliff's sister in St. Louis worries if I don't write something every day.  I'm not doing this blogging thing to make money or to try to attract thousands of readers.  There's great freedom in that, and I am thankful.  So today, I choose to tell you about my strawberries.  And of course, I am liable to include a picture or two of my dog; nobody will set up a blog with a huge following telling the world how boring I am or how sick and tired they are of my dog.  They SURELY won't be complaining that I'm making too much money doing this.  Although, hey, I'm up to $78.55 with Google Adsense.  When I get to $100, I get a check for that amount.  $100 every six years is better than nothing, right?  

This is today's pickins, about a quart.  We've had cold weather and rain for days on end, so the strawberries are slow to ripen.  I've been getting enough, though, for our cereal each day, and a nice bowl of berries for dessert sometimes.

Matthew 6:26: Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.   
My heavenly Father is feeding those birds my strawberries!  It's OK, though; there's plenty for us all.  When I'm picking berries, I can almost hear Miriam Makeba singing "Love Tastes Like Strawberries".

Here's what the birds left me, all coated with sugar and chilling in the refrigerator.  I'm hoping the strawberries will hit their peak when my son, his wife, and my granddaughter are here from Georgia.  I believe they're arriving June 6.

Cliff thought I was asleep, so he grabbed the camera and aimed.  I heard him moving around, opened my eyes, and asked him, "Do you want me to act like I'm asleep?"  He did, and I did.  Iris, I believe, was actually sleeping.     

Around the yard

I picked these strawberries this morning after the rain quit.  There's about two cups.  Cliff and I will have a little cereal with our strawberries.  

This is a red iris; I guess that's as red an iris as they were able to develop, eh?  


I'm still trying to get a decent picture of an oriole.  I can see that they would go through a jar of grape jelly in a day, so I'm simply going to give them four tablespoons in the morning and that will have to do them.