Strawberries

Ever since E was a toddler he would eat any fruit he could get his hands on. It didn't need to be ripe - not at all - he would happily grab at tiny apples, green berries and unripe peaches that had fallen on the ground. He has always had an especial love for strawberries. Here he is as a toddler just after a bath in his "clean" jammies helping himself to some unripe strawberries. He was unstoppable and so I stopped trying to convince him to wait 'til they were ripe. What was the motivation for him? He knew that he would get plenty of ripe ones too because we pick hundreds of pounds of them. He wanted ripe and unripe and he wanted them now!!Now I was just the other day telling a friend that I really felt he was growing up. (he is eight now) The reason I thought this was because for the first time he has been able to wait patiently for fruit to ripen. ( a big deal for him) He has had his eye on his strawberries since they started to flower. He watched the tiny fruit develop and waited still. Two weeks ago he noticed that they had the slightest tinge of colour on one side but still he waited. Last week he noticed that they were coloured almost all over but wanted to wait for the deep red to develop. Only two days ago he decided that they were almost ready...yesterday things went very wrong, indeed.

As I was out preparing an asparagus bed I heard a roar of indignation.

"I am so mad," he said. "Something has been nibbling at my berries."

With a sinking heart I joined him crouching over his plants. Sure enough. Something had been nibbling at his ripest berry. So, we talked about the possibility of it being a mama robin who needed energy to feed her babies and then he popped the remainder of the berry into his mouth. Will he continue to wait 'til they are ripe? I am not so sure that he will.