Harvest! Details of the Apple Orchard

Today is the first day of the apple harvest. My grandfather told me yesterday, as Bear and I watched the guys drive the tractors, move the bins, and line the bins with plastic, "Tomorrow we'll be picking apples". My son will want to watch. Until I lived in an orchard, I had no idea how much went into keeping one up. I sort of had this impression that the trees just grew their apples, and then they were picked. But an orchard is a LOT of work and the work is year-round. When harvest is over, then there's pruning, and maybe thinning. If it's a cold day in winter and there's nothing to be done with the trees, the tractors require maintenance. My favorite days of the orchard cycle are the "Days of the Bees".

One day, I went out into the orchard and heard the loud, constant hum and buzz of ? I asked my grandfather what the noise was. "Bees!" he said. They actually pay for millions and billions of bees to be set loose on the orchard to make sure the flowers get pollinated. There are bees everywhere during this time and when they're done, at nighttime, the bees are lured back to their containers and taken back. They don't buy the bees, the bees are rented! I found this the most fascinating part of the orchard.

My son's favorite part is the tractors. Hands-down. He wanted to watch the tractors yesterday for hours. Roooom-rooom!

There are different orchard pieces of property. We live on one that goes all the way down to the river. The state parks and towns were trying to get a path that cut through all the riverfront orchards, and it looks like the orchardists, who have been fighting this for 7-10 years in legal battles, have finally won. I met and talked to Jack Fiele yesterday--him and his wife. It was a pleasure to speak with them. They spearheaded the fight, but my grandfather and other orchardists joined in. While Jack was in good spirits, my grandfather, his brothers, and Pat (one of the brother's sons) were much more pessimistic. They all said they were sure it wasn't over and that the state wouldn't give up and would try to appeal.

I have to say, when you see all the different kinds of work and knowledge that is required for an orchard or farm, if you're running it yourself (and are not a "gentleman farmer"), you gain a lot of respect for the farmers. These are smart guys. You think of farmers as unsophisticated, but then you realize how smart they are, and think about how almost all the framers of The Constitution were farmers and realize these guys deserve to have a high seat of honor in our country. I can understand now why farmers get incentives. If we lose the farmers and the farmland...I don't know...For one thing, it will be a Hell of a lot hotter.

When it's blazing outside and one can hardly breath in downtown Wenatchee, if you walk into an orchard there is instant relief. It's not anything like the shade from one tree...the farther you go into the orchard, the cooler it gets. Significantly cooler.

As for the farmers themselves, I just know that these guys have to know how machinery works; how to repair it; how to keep up on the latest orchard news; when to pull trees or a crop to plant a different variety; what fertilizers to use; all about insects and pests; how to care for trees and fruit, and then they also dabble in grafting and trying new things like creating new varieties. Then, they have to be people savvy enough to form strong business relationships with buyers. They've had the same buyer, who loves their fruit, for almost 50 years. That buyer sends out a horticulturist to check the fruit periodically and sample it. It's a routine part of the buyer relationship.

When many apple orchards were going under a few years ago because of a fruit market crisis (fruit was coming in from overseas, cheaper), my grandfather's orchard held up. He and his brothers are exceptionally frugal and have always made money, even in the worst times. The reason is because they're hands-on and do alot of the work themselves. The brothers are now all in their 80s and they go out to work every single day. Pat is younger, in his 40s, and he calls himself "the grunt", but I have a lot of respect for these guys and so do their workers. All the brothers go out and work with the workers, side-by-side. The brothers can't afford to pay as much as many orchardists, or choose not to, but because the brothers have humility, some workers prefer to work for the brothers. I'm sure some of the workers feel the way I do, that respect is more important than money.

Two of my grandparent's daughters married Mexican men who were former employees of the orchards. (A sidenote: When you marry someone Hispanic or Latino, I think, in some ways, it's like marrying into the whole community. I tell you, one thing about the Mexican familia, is that word spreads like wildfire. News and gossip gets from Washington to California in one day flat, just by word of mouth. I am not even kidding--Their grapevine is like no other).

Anyway, the guys showed up today at 5 a.m; the brothers go out there with the workers early in the morning and stay with them until they're finished. Year-round, my grandfather works at least 10 hour days. A little less in the winter. Everyone who knows them comments on their work ethic. People have offered to buy their properties many times and they've always refused. I think, even if I don't profit from it, that it would be nice to keep it in the family somehow. One of the neighbors, Rick Baken, wanted to buy one of the properties that adjoins his own orchard.

Rick Baken is a former FBI agent. I always thought it was peculiar that after being in the City so long, and having such an exciting job, he wanted to be an orchardist. I even thought maybe it was his latest gig, in some kind of undercover work, but then I found out his uncle or great-uncle was the former owner of McDougall's, one of the largest orchard owners in Wenatchee. Rick grew up in this area, and if his uncle had an orchard, it makes sense to me that he developed an interest.

There is something sentimental about an orchard. There is this smell of the dirt and trees and fruit; there is the feel of the cool protection the trees provide from the sun and a wafting of the air when the sprinklers are on; there are the branches and grass underfoot with the occasional fallen fruit, and the powder dirt is a thick black mud beneath the green trees. (You always hear about the great mud and dirt the pioneers found in the Willamette Valley in Oregon but I never saw dirt as rich and black as it is in Wenatchee, Washington.) If you've spent any time in an orchard, as I did when I was a little girl, you never forget it--.