Strawberry Fields

I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  It's not quite as black prairie as Kansas in that it is slightly hilly and actually has TREES, but it was ringed with truck farms.  In 1960 the small towns that were 20 miles from the center of Tulsa were the farms towns.  The farmers grew items that could be hauled to market in trucks, sometimes even pick up trucks - thus, 'truck farms'.  There was corn, tomatoes, every kind of bean, pea or squash, cucumbers,  eggplant, peppers and strawberries.  As each crop ripened, you got your paper sack, walked out into the fields and picked what you wanted.  Each farm wife had a small cash box on the worn front porch of the farm house. I can remember these make up free, slightly frowsy women in their house dresses covered with worn aprons  pushing open their creaking screen doors to take the quarters and dimes with their work hardened hands.  At my house going to pick fresh vegetables was as big a part of summer as the slip and slide.  It was also the only time of the year we ate fresh vegetables.  Other than potatoes and onions, and sometimes carrots, all our other vegetables were canned because fresh was expensive.  

I did love eating the vegetables, but I hated picking.  There were BUGS, and if the goal was corn, there were corn worms - fat, sluggy worms that seemed to always find my arm to crawl up.  Another rough spot of picking is that if you didn't arrive almost at the crack of dawn, it was hot; breathless, beating down sunstroke hot as you walked up and down the rows looking for whatever was ripe.  

As we have been vagabonding, I've been fortunate to live in three farm valleys.  The best by far was the Skagit Valley in northwest Washington.  They produced EVERYTHING (except tomatoes - too cool), and they especially produced berries.  I developed a taste for the just picked berry, and believe me, that's not hard.   The Satsuma Farm actually had an ice cream stand on their farm and mixed the freshly picked berries into the most divine shakes I've ever tasted.  

I was extremely happy to discover the Mt. Naomi Farm just north of Logan (1285 South 4500 North, Hyde Park) www.mtnaomifarms.com .   Immediately I signed up for their email notifications telling me when the berries would be ready to pick.  This past Saturday we went a strawberry pickin'.  If you haven't ever had berries fresh from the vine, then you won't know how remarkable it is to find a farm like this one. 

We met Brenda "Grab Life by the Berries" Meikle who owns this farm with her husband.  This was a portion of the second generation family farm that wasn't devoted to the dairy business.  They also grow alfalfa and hay, in addition to the berries. This is the third year that the strawberries have been planted, and they are finally making enough berries to sell.  There will also be blackberries later in the season.  Run don't walk to this farm for some of these luscious berries.  They are open for picking Saturdays in 7:30 - noon or other days by appointment.

Cache Valley is one of those unique places that has fertile land perfect for farming, just as the Skagit Valley is in Washington or the land around the Franconia Notch in New Hampshire or the farms around Tulsa in Oklahoma.  The farms no longer exist around Tulsa.  From 1960 to 1980 Tulsa doubled in size, and the city fathers didn't encourage high rise or multi-family housing, instead, it was large subdivisions and freeway development.  The farmland is gone and can't be reclaimed.  Farmland is a natural resource just like forests, mountain vistas and national parks.  I can already see the beginning ravages of suburban 'sprawl' creeping into the farmland of this valley.  I think the residents here need to be asking themselves what they want this valley to look like in 50 years.  Neglecting this question will result in losing something irreplaceable.