Bouffant Blonde

I love strawberries. They taste great. You can eat them plain. You can blend them with a little sugar and make a terrific sauce for ice cream. Strawberry Pie is yummy. Fruit salad just isn't fruit salad without strawberries. I could go on and on. Unfortunately, I'm not the only one who likes strawberries. Last year my dad bought several strawberry plants and tended them. He got bored I guess because they require a good deal of work and yield very little at first. He thought all the plants had died. This year I uncovered a few surviving plants. The key word here is uncovered. They were hidden by an old gate and lots of grass and weeds. I removed the gate and carefully pulled the grass and weeds away. I've been watering and tending. And I was so surprised! Lots and lots of blooms. Then lots and lots of strawberries. I waited patiently for the berries to ripen. And just as they would turn that brilliant red, they would disappear. My mother suggested the culprits could be the...