strawberry fields forever

Okay, so they aren't even in "fields", but we did pick strawberries! We went over to a place called Parke Family HydroFarms, where they grow strawberries. They aren't grown in the typical fashion, on plants that were grown in the dirt with chemicals, but instead are grown off the ground in a way that does not require as much land. They also do not use insecticides, which sometimes means it's a little buggy, but at least you know you aren't eating all those chemicals. Anyway, Tyler loves to go fruit/veggie picking always, but he especially likes how they let you use a little pair of "special scissors" to cut your fruit off the plant. Tyler thinks this is very cool.

Not only do they grow strawberries, but tons of other vegetables. We recently got a membership which entitles us to buy baskets of their produce (all locally grown, without chemicals). We got a beautiful basket yesterday. It's educational for me as well, because, well, I'll be honest, I didn't even know what kale looked like, and now tonight I'll be cooking with it!

In completely unrelated news, Al left yesterday for Oregon. He has to attend some sort of conference. He found out Wednesday afternoon and he left yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately that means that we can't go to the wedding we had planned on attending on Saturday, which apparently is somewhat fortunate for me since I couldn't find a dress that fit to save my life!