Berry treasure

Ran: Thursday, June 28, 2007

Berry treasure
Time winds to a close on the local strawberry season

By Keighla Schmidt
Leader-Telegram staff

Summer is just under way, but the local strawberry season has begun to lose some of its color.

Berry stands and pick-your-own patches throughout the Chippewa Valley have been open for several weeks and are getting ready to wrap up their seasons by Saturday.

Sellers said supply of the fruit has been about average this year.

Red Cedar Valley Farms has two stands in Eau Claire, near ShopKo on Clairemont Avenue and near The Potting Shed on Brackett Avenue. Lucas Pillman of Menomonie has been selling strawberries at the stands for four years.

Pillman said he sells about 100 five-quart pails of strawberries each day. His morning starts at 6 a.m., when he supervises berry picking. He then drives to his stand and sells them out of a trailer.

"The first part of the day, from about 9:30 to 12, is nonstop," Pillman said.

He has regular customers who come out as early as they can to get straight-from-the-patch strawberries.

Down the road on Hastings Way, Rollie Kriesel of Trempealeau has been setting up shop in a yellow van he drove from The Berry Patch in Centerville. Kriesel has been in the strawberry-selling business for more than 60 years.

"I've always had a yellow van," Kriesel said. "People know where to go then."

For the past 20 years, he has traveled on June mornings to Eau Claire to his post in the Mega Pick'n Save parking lot. He said the selling season is about two weeks.

Kriesel's red-stained fingers are kept busy during the day, not only selling to customers but transferring the berries from cardboard flats - where they are put when picked each morning - into quart containers. He said each flat holds six quarts of strawberries.

He estimated somewhere between 200 and 270 quarts are sold daily from his van.

Kriesel often fights the urge to sample some of the fruits while working, but he loves to eat them over ice cream.

Eau Claire resident Jeanne Brown also likes to eat berries over ice cream. Brown usually buys from stands when she can. "They're fresher and better," she said.

Brown and her two children will eat a five-quart pail in a few days, either plain or with sweets, she said.

Anita Fike has volunteered to sell strawberries from a blue Jack's Strawberry's stand on Hastings Way for two years. Jack's is from Fairchild.

Despite receiving a cut to her leg that required seven stitches while she helped bring a purchase to a customer's car recently, Fike loves the job.

"I get to eat as many strawberries as I want," she said. "It's one of the benefits of volunteering."

She also has met many interesting people. "It's really neat to see how a strawberry stand can help so many people," Fike said.

Schmidt can be reached at 933-9203 or keighla.schmidt@ecpc.com.