YOU BERRY MONSTERS are a wonderful site each morning, vacuuming up the ripest specimens, vanishing by the sleepy afternoon, and reappearing for a final sunset sweep.  Bravo and thank you, friends.

Strawberry season continues this week.  Successive waves of berries ripen with each sunny spell.  All 9 rows, about 10,000 plants, are producing.

Lots of berries, but hordes of pickers, too.  Your best bet is the morning after a sunny day.  Weekends are a scramble—to the early birds go the spoils!

You can score totally legal insider tips at our Facebook page.  We update it daily with strawberry status.

Well that is the picking news.  Stay tuned for a raspberry alert.  The early varieties are fast-tracking and the bees are working double shifts.

ABOUT THOSE SPINNING TOASTERS

There once was a log named The Log.  An old oak tree, fallen but not forgotten.  It was bigger than Zorro and worked almost as hard.

We picked up The Log one day with our picker-upper.  Just to have a look-see.  Just to dream a little and wonder aloud.

Hauled it down to a petite country sawmill.  A mom-and-pop joint down in Alpine Junction.  Down in the valley between old glacial hillocks.

They have a quicker picker-upper than we have.  A handsome buggy with Dutch doors and a grabber claw.  A household item in Logville.

While The Log was down in Logville, we strung up this doodad.  The tape measure is just for looks.  You can tell we were “eyeballing.”

Mom-and-pop gave us a jingle and we retrieved the planks.  Sanded them down, stained them up, and screwed them into our dubious T-frame.

Some of you may remember this table from the Pigs-n-Apples Party last fall.  The big table with no chairs, where everybody painted pumpkins.

Winter came and went.  Our brains thawed and we realized that a table without chairs is a wagon without wheels.  So we set the factory a-rolling.

Decided that round was a good shape.  Basically, you got round or square.  Flipped a coin and when it came out square we decided round anyway.

Started looking like a pizza shop.  Maybe we were just hungry.

When the wood part was done, we called in the metalheads.  They started doing what they do.  Noise and sparks and testosterone galore.

Hey, little brother, hold this plate while I torch it at 6,000 degrees.

OK, now hold this one, the glowing orange part.

Some assembly was required, then we dumped the seats into the Subaru.

Tried one on for size before the final approach.

And bingo! A picnic spot for the whole family—all 28 of you.  A place to be Chairman of the Board of your life, with your 27 imaginary assistants.

A cozy country wedding spot, where nobody will be seated at the “wrong” table.  No family schisms here, just one blue-green blob of humanity.  A toast!

Note to parents:  THE SEATS ACTUALLY SPIN.  It helps with comfort and usability.  But if you have trained your kids to jump on chairs and tables, they will need to know.

IT’S A WORKING FARM

In fact we’ll remind everyone generally to take care while visiting the farm.  It is a working farm.  Not that anything actually WORKS right now.

But seriously, it is a working farm with tractors and machines going round.  There could be rusty screws on the ground and holes to twist your ankle.

There are pets and bees and bugs and chickens.  Falling apples could plunk you on the head.  We try to secure everything with duct tape, but be smart.

SPEAKING OF COUNTRY WEDDINGS

All of us at Indian Creek send our love and felicitations to Simon and Gaia, dear friends of the farm who have volunteered so many hours here.  They are married as of today in rural Spoletto, Italy. Hip hip hooray.  Thanks for reading.  Hope to see you at The ‘Creek.