I don’t remember Daddy ever growing strawberries. After I married and left home, we went to a “u-pick” strawberry patch and picked our own fresh strawberries. Oh my goodness, they were good. It’s easy to make yourself sick eating so many fresh strawberries.

Naturally, you ate as you picked, not taking time to wash the strawberries. Guess what? Dirt, bugs or whatever went into your mouth along with that beautiful, delicious strawberry! Strawberries grow right on top of the dirt, so you were standing on your head to pick your own. Picking strawberries at ground level is back-breaking. It only took once or twice picking my own strawberries to realize the value of farmers. I gladly paid for baskets of strawberries that were already picked; no more picking my own. Hard work, ‘nuff said!

Picking strawberries reminded me of picking cotton. Daddy always grew lots and lots of cotton and we kids were the cotton pickers. All teenagers from neighboring farms would pick cotton for one farmer; after that farm was picked, we would pick for another farmer. We have lots of memories and lasting friendships from working together. I have Facebook friends who worked in the cotton fields with me many years ago. Nowadays there is machinery to pick cotton, but not back in the good ‘ole days. We picked cotton from daylight to dark, stopping long enough to have lunch (or dinner as we called it back then). At the end of every two rows of cotton, Daddy would weigh our cotton-sacks, empty them into a large trailer and back to the fields we would go.

At the end of some of the rows of cotton, we dug a hole and buried a quart Mason jar filled with water. The ground would keep the water cool. We all looked forward to the end of the rows where we could get a drink of water; we all drank from the same jar and guess what? None of us ever got sick! It’s strange how time changes our lifestyle and our way of thinking. There were hard times living on a farm during the good ‘ole days, but good times, too, with lots of memories never to be experienced by our grandchildren. I’ve always been a camera nut and enjoy looking back over old photographs taken during this time of my life; some photographs would make you laugh out loud.

Strawberry nut bread

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 ¼ cups chopped pecans

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 ¼ cups vegetable oil

2 cups frozen sliced strawberries, thawed

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease 2 loaf pans and set aside.

Cream sugar and eggs together, add oil and stir. Mix the remaining dry ingredients together and add to creamed mixture, stir until well mixed. Stir in pecans and strawberries. Pour into your 2 prepared loaf pans. Bake for 1 hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before slicing. Enjoy.

I usually add parchment paper to the bottom of my pans. I grease the parchment paper in addition to greasing the pans. Doing this will make for easy removal of bread from your pans and easy clean up, too.

From the scriptures

Spiritual food is essential for all of us, as well as physical food. We enjoy two or three meals every day. We should nourish our mind and feed our spirit daily just as we feed our body. Reading our Bible daily is one way to feed our spirit.

Our Scripture for this week is 1 Peter 3:15-16:

“But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.”