More Strawberries...With Chocolate

We went back for more strawberries on the weekend and came away with 10 more buckets.  I've got plenty in the freezer now (for our winter smoothies) and we had enough to make Rebecca's chocolate shortcake that I've been meaning to make since last summer.

Yum!  I followed the recipe this time and the boys loved it but I have a few changes in mind for next time which include making only half the cake batter (for a thinner cake part) and then letting some of the juice from the strawberries soak into the bottom cake layer for a bit (possibly also putting a bit of liquor of some sort in with that strawberry juice!).

So now we're done with putting by strawberries and next up will be cherries and raspberries.  The neighbourhood where we are now was a cherry orchard at one time and there are still cherry trees everywhere so it will be fun to see which neighbours put up "Cherries for sale" signs.

The other day we all decided to have some fun with our cameras.  Each day we pick a different subject and we all take a photo of it and then decide which one we find the most interesting.  S started off with a flower and then came in to show us and told us we had to figure out which flower it was and then go take a photo of it.  E was not impressed.  "It's not a treasure hunt!", he said.  He just wanted to know which flower it was so he could take his photo too. ;-)

Then E chose the next day's topic and it was super macro close-up.  He has taken several interesting pictures and tonight we will see them all and then pick the next subject.  Quite fun to see the different perspectives each person has.

There are so many gorgeous blooms here that it is quite easy to get carried away with photo taking but I noticed yesterday that I can't help myself from being drawn to taking photos of veggies.  I really do find them utterly beautiful.

(first peas in my home garden which is a little behind compared to the garden in town)

First ripe cherry tomato in home garden, this one is planted in a big herb box on our side patio.  It is a wonderful place to have herbs growing.