The weather is delightful here! Bright and sunny with temps in the 80s and no humidity! We are getting lots done! So are the bees who love that the Bay Magnolia is blooming and has lots of pollen available!Yesterday morning I picked in the strawberries patch for about two hours and brought in 23 pounds and 10 ounces of shiny red joy…which when we went back to the previous years’ logs was just short of a single day record of berries!

This is wonderful, but all that work to grow and harvest the berries is all for naught if you don’t preserve what you can’t eat fresh. So, even though we have been stuffing our tummies with fresh strawberries, it is time to freeze some. Luckily, strawberries freeze nicely. I washed and stemmed them and and put them on a terry cloth towel to dry for a bit. Then I put them on half sheet pans and stick them into the freezer to harden. I love the little lipstick kiss mark they leave behind on the towels!   Besides the strawberries, we have had lots and lots of radishes to eat and have started using them in all kinds of daily dishes as well as eating them raw since they are still mild in flavor. These store well fresh and we will certainly plant another round or two since they only take 23 days to mature from seeds. Our other love this time of year is the wonderful spinach and lettuces we have available. We pick spinach for dinner each day and the miracle of miracles is that it seems to grow back over night and is ready to be picked again the next day. We continue to experiment with new ways to serve our three varieties of spinach and last night we came up with a spinach pizza! Goodness knows we make pizza quite often here, but when Dave told me his brother Vic’s favorite pizza had spinach on it, I figured we should try it. I proceeded with our regular dough and sauce and after the Italian cheeses went on, I added spinach that I had quickly wilted in the skillet on the stove top. I added some onion, mushroom, feta cheese and some chicken sausage that the butcher gave Dave to try. Needless to say, it was delicious and we will definitely keep this in the summer repertoire! I’m off to a day of beekeeping with our mentor, Jurgen, so I’m sure I’ll have more to report later today on the status of the bees!