Strawberry Dreams

I cannot help myself! I apologize, Dear Readers. I am having strawberry dreams. I am gazing over my snow-covered garden at a bright red Cardinal who is singing his little heart out as if to say, 'Enough with the snow Mr. Winter! Come on Spring!' Yesterday, we Easterners got slammed with a nor'eastern storm. Power outages, downed trees, high winds, snow, ice, the works. Mr. Winter was showing off and I for one, am a little irritated. 

I drove through the slush and hideous traffic to retrieve our daughter from school and on the way home, we say a very confused robin. The poor thing was clinging for dear life to a tree that was being blown to bits! It tried to fly to safety just as a gust of wind blew it, and icy snow, all over the street. Kids, who had to walk home, did their best to text for help (oh yes, they managed to text)  while they too got blown across the sidewalk. The unfortunate teens trudged along, hair caked in snow, because they are too "cool" to have worn proper jackets or, read anything besides Instagram feeds or SnapChat. IF they had read any sort of weather report, they would have know to prepare! (Sorry.) I for one, honestly thought the weather warnings were false. I had just opened all the windows in the house two days ago! I worked on my cookbook and watched the trees blow and the rain turn to sleet and then snow. The wind increased in strength and the icy snow battered the windows. My worry about my husband commuting home grew with each passing gust of wind and, luckily, our daughter and I made it home from school before we lost power.

Anyway, getting back to the inspiration for today's post...

As I gazed at the Cardinal, I saw my snow-covered strawberry patch, or at least where it will be soon, and thought I would share this photograph of last summer's harvest to cheer and inspire you to have strawberry dreams of your own. Can't you just taste them? Imagine a freshly harvested berry, still warm from the sun... That ought to cheer you, Dear Readers. It does me... Come on Spring!

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