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The gift of strawberries
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 Now is the time to eat strawberries. - File photo The wild strawberries spread out over hillsides with their waxy red runners were showing through the groundcover; my small collection of strawberry plants finally developed its red fruits; and at least two local events Saturday featured strawberries — the La Grande Farmers Market Annual Strawberry Shortcake day and a fundraiser in North Powder which sold shortcake too for the community’s library. If I say bird, most Americans might picture a chicken or a pigeon (or a red-winged blackbird in this area) — something common — and not necessarily a flamingo, even though our world is full of thousands of kinds of birds. When I say berry, let me guess that most Americans picture the unrare strawberry — the fruit in our jam that makes the childhood staple, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Though not my favorite berry, the strawberry is very much well-loved. It’s as familiar as an apple. Everyone can draw an apple and everyone can draw a strawberry — sort of heart-shaped with a green top and a field of seeds. Pink and red, in industry-created flavors and scents, is strawberry, but to taste the real berry is entirely different. Packed with vitamin C, close your eyes and bite into one, and the fruit is practically an orange. The ascorbic acid shines through, providing an astringent palate cleanser, or if perfectly ripe, the experience is a sweet, tender mass of juice and flesh that you can pluck clean from its calyx. This weekend, Lucas and I picked strawberries at a U-pick farm on Sauvie Island. They were gifts to friends we stayed with while out of town. I can’t show up empty handed when offered a place to sleep, so they were perfect. About an hour before the sun went down, we filled four small blue-green berry baskets one by one, loading them into one of the farm’s trusty red Radio Flyer wagons. Along the way, I squatted to choose the darkest berries, considering color before shape and size. We probably consumed at least enough berries to fill another small basket, but tasting was encouraged at this farm. Traipsing through the rows, the farm’s manager said hello. He asked what we were finding as he made his way through the plots surveying what was left after the strawberry shortcake-craving berry pickers visited earlier that day and previous week. He estimated that the crop had 20 percent more of its yield left to offer and noted that he was impressed with the plants’ vigorous canopy. He kept saying canopy, and I kept looking up for trees, but of course, he meant the strawberry plants’ leaves which act not only as solar panels but as shields from the hot sun.
 The canopy on the strawberry patch was vigorous on Sauvie island last weekend. - The Observer/EDEN KRUGER Pat Todd, manager of the La Grande Farmers Market, reported that the traditional strawberry shortcake fundraiser was a sellout success. The dessert featured Oregon strawberries. Brought in from out of Union County, Todd noted that the berries used in the event aren’t ever local to Eastern Oregon. It seems there are no commercial strawberry farms in the area, even though many home gardeners maintain healthy patches. The most recent known farm that grew strawberries commercially belonged to Robert and Edna Chandler of La Grande. In operation more than four or five decades ago, Robert Chandler, who died in 1966, developed a frost-resistant strawberry. Edna died 33 years later in 1999. Is there something about the color of a red berry, like the strawberry, that reminds us of vitality — the essential blood inside of us? To eat a berry, is to indulge in something small and fleeting. Unlike the hardy apple, strawberries and other berries have no shelf life. Unless you make plans for jam and jelly, the best time to eat them is now.
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