Portrait of a young boy as a troublemaker

Yesterday I had the privilege of being invited to my friend’s husband’s dedicated strawberry research farm lot at Cal Poly to pick strawberries with my kids. It had just rained three days prior; so many of the berries were lightly moist, and ripe. They felt warm and plump in the hand with none of that grocery store rubberiness. A vividly sweet fragrance swirled around us, punctuated by the sharp tang of manure. Cyclists and joggers whizzed by on the road. “Strawberry fields forever...” someone on a bike sang out. Baby stepped in some algal puddles with his leather moccasins, repeatedly pulled up every single plastic identification sign in his path (there were several dozens in that little one-acre plot), and wailed in my arms because he was sweaty and grumpy about not being allowed to climb all over the crops and the empty trailer that had been off to the side. Toddler refused to touch the strawberries, despite it easily being one of his favorite foods. He was content to observe the…