We Go Wednesday (On A Thursday) - My Lucky Leaf Adventures Pt. 2

Last post, I barely scratched the surface with my Lucky Leaf trip.  Here's what we did the next day...hang on, lots more pictures are coming!

We spent the day learning how their crops go from tree to can....our first stop Bonnie Brae Fruit Farms where grower Jim Lott and his daughter Sarah took us on a cherry harvest.  Row upon row of beautiful cherries...

Do you know one of the best tasting things I've ever had? Ripe cherries right off the tree.  I've never had one.  Cherry season is extremely short, so we seriously lucked out!

Here's the crazy part...the large platform underneath is to catch the cherries.  How do they get there? A large grip clamps the tree's bough and violently shakes it.  Yes.  They shake the s&@t out of the tree and the cherries fall out.  It's one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen.

Then, the conveyor belt system carefully deposits the cherries into large metal bins filled with cold water to keep them cool and crisp.  They will even shovel ice over them. .

Although the trees are traumatized some...here are the marks on one  tree...they spend the season being taken care of for the next harvest.  The farmers take excellent care of their trees, after all, it is their livelyhood.  These orchards are handed down from one generation to another.

Here we all are! Yes, that is the farmer's daughter in the grey sweatshirt (insert various jokes here) and her dad in the back.  Who is everyone?  The Mama Report,  The Lucky Ladybug, DoughMessTic, Susan's Disney Family, Bell'alimento, and Cooke's Frontier.

Peaches early in the season...oh, they are going to be beautiful in a few months...

So will be the apples...I bet it is all so gorgeous in the fall.

Alright, so I lied, we'll have to spread this out over three posts. Next time, we'll go to the plant and watch a can of cherries being born!