Field Trip - Carlsbad Strawberry Field

Celeste's school had a field trip to Carlsbad's strawberry fields this morning. Allie had another commitment, so I volunteered to shuttle the grrrl and a couple of kids from her class over to the fields.
Not having lived in Carlsbad even two years, I have no idea on how long this field has been producing berries. But with Carlsbad's agricultural heritage, I am under the impression that it's been in service for many, many years.

We could buy flats of perfectly-arranged berries ($30)...
...but what's the fun in that?
We were all given styrofoam buckets along with some basic instructions (only pick berries that are 100% red, no running, no stepping on the plants, etc.), and were sent off to the fields.
It's really quite hard NOT to find good fruit; if you really wanted to, you could probably fill a bucket with perfect strawberries in five minutes.

But Celeste was on a hunt to find the biggest red berry she could.
A few jumbo berries were snagged. Meanwhile, I neatly arranged mine to ensure maximum fruit and minimum voids in the bucket.

okay, so this pic isn't doing a good job of showing a lack of voids, I must have taken this prior to a re-arrange

Even though our buckets were filled, we had a difficult time NOT grabbing more to stuff on the top of the heap.
Yet another great day in Carlsbad.
Now time to raid the 'fridge for some succulent strawberries.