The Sudbrock Scoop

A bushel of strawberries

For all of you who were wondering what to do with a bushel of strawberries, I will share with you what we did with them.

First of all, the kids finished off quite a few before we got home. Then I washed them up. My dad suggested freezing the bit size ones to eat on a hot day, so we froze a gallon bag full of strawberries. We used another pound of them to make ice cream. One night for supper, we had fresh strawberries, hot biscuits and cream. Yum! We also had some with our breakfast one morning. With 6 people, a bushel of strawberries doesn't have a very long life. I didn't make jelly though. My strawberry jelly never seems to turn out the way I wish it would.

Now, for the two 5-gallon buckets of sweet cherries. Well that is another topic all together! They keep a little longer than strawberries, so we are enjoying them fresh as much as possible. They travel well in school lunches too. I have frozen a gallon bag full. Then we had some in ice cream. But most importantly, they are turning into jelly. So far, I have 20 pints ready to go to the pantry. Cleaning the strawberries was a cinch compared to cleaning and pitting 10 gallons of cherries! My fingers are a funny color of purple now.

Thank you for praying for us. The blessings of fruit from the Lord have been so wonderful this year. I remember our first summer in Germany. People would give us so much fruit and it was just Paul and I. We didn't have a freezer yet, and I didn't have any canning jars. We ate as much of it as we could and we gave some away, but in the end, a lot of it spoiled - cherries, plums, berries, peaches. I felt so terrible about not being able to preserve any of it, I just sat and cried. I begged God for the things we would need to store the next gifts of fruit that He sent our way. In the years since then, He has provided us with a large freezer and plenty of canning jars, and He continues to bless us with fruit each year.

It is however for the bushels of souls that we are most thankful. Please continue to pray with us to see fruit from the spiritual seeds which have been planted during our 10 years in Wittenberg. The summer holds so much promise.

Praying for fruit in your life as well,

Chelli