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Sometimes, I like to ponder how I would make different decisions if I was truly forced to be self-sufficient.  My scenarios range from the fantastical --- we fall back through a time portal and are hacking our living out of the wilderness --- to the prosaic --- we simply can't afford storebought goodies.

Strawberry week is one indulgence that would definitely go if I had to be truly self-sufficient.  Since strawberries are my favorite fruit, I spend the first week of full harvest gorging to my heart's content.  We have strawberries breakfast, lunch, and dinner (and for dessert, of course), and I don't worry one bit about preserving a berry for later.

If I was counting on our own stores of fruit to get us through the winter, though, strawberry week would go.  Especially in a year like this one where an early bloom combined with a late frost wiped out the first berries, shortening our usual month of strawberries to more like two or three weeks.  Even with unlimited fruit at the grocery store, I wouldn't treat myself to so many berries now if I didn't have the option of storebought winesap apples from the fruit stand to get me through the winter.

As it is, we've only filled the food dehydrator with the fixings for strawberry leather once so far, and I suspect we may fit in one more batch before the berries start to dwindle.  Homegrown strawberry leather really perks us up in February and March when there's nearly nothing fresh coming in from the garden.  But not so much that I want to eliminate strawberry week....