Showing in the above photo, is John on the Little Red Beauty and I forget who was on Old Blue....John Deere is in front of them....it is a fairly new tractor. The old one gave out just a few years before this photo was taken. The old one was taken to be worked on and the dealer lent us this one to use while they worked on the old one...Well, it was going to cost so much to fix the old one, they decided to buy this one instead. But first they had to take it back to the shop and put on these small tires. It would not have gone through the orchard in the fall
The Red Beauty is mine...was mine...I have logged many hours and apples and miles on that picker. It has quit on me in more trees than I care to name...I always say I should have had the trees named by the time I left there. I have climbed down the tree more times than I care to count.
There was pruning in the winter, then in the spring sometimes I did thinning by hand. There is a king blossom with other blooms all around it. The king blossom makes an apple first. After those apples from the king blossom are so big, the orchard is sprayed with something to make the other apples fall off. But they don't all fall...and if an apple tree is left with too many apples clustered together, they don't get as big as they would if only an apple or two are left together. So, I ended up going through and pruning by hand.
Also, in the summer is a disease called fireblight...I would make runs through the whole orchard about twice a week cutting out all the fireblight I could find. And before you know it, it is time to start picking apples. The earliest variety we had was the Earliblaze...which is pictured below.
Anyway, I didn't do much today....but in the heat I cannot help but think what I might have been doing were I still working. The above pictures were taken August 10 in 2007....two years after I quit work. That is Earliblaze apples they are picking...so it is possible if I still worked there I would have been picking apples.Though I sort of miss it, I don't miss the extremes of the weather. The heat of the summer, and the cold of the winter. Yet I would not have missed any of it for anything...it was the ideal job for me.
Very nice post, Rose... Thanks for sharing with us a little of your time when you used to work in the apple orchard...
ReplyDeleteHow is that orchard doing these days? Do you all eat alot of apples? I'm not sure I'd eat many --after working in and around them for so long... But, then again, I love apples.
Great post. Thanks for sharing.
Hugs,
Betsy
This always sounds like such an interesting job. I didn't know any of that about the king blossom. Maybe that is why my poor apple trees have such little apples. We never do anything to them. I let the deer and critters have them. Those Earliblaze look really good. I've never had that variety. We had an apple in Indianapolis on our property that was so good for everything...I think the name was Dutchess, but not sure.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this post Rose. We are starting to plant apple trees here to get an orchard going. I'm going to ear mark about fireblight. This is why I love blogging so much, you learn a lot from other people. I hope you don't mind if I come to you for questions we might have?
ReplyDeleteThank you for the information on the work involved in having an apple orchard. I can kind of picture you climbing down one of those apple trees.
ReplyDeleteOh Rose what an interesting post you have today. You sure were/are a hard working woman.
ReplyDeleteWe used to have a small apple orchard---well years ago. We had an old red farmall and then got a Kabota and Dave used to put me in the bucket to work the trees or to pick. Nothing to labor intense. LOL
MB
I found it very interesting to see your equipment and to read how this work goes.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comment on my Jilly post - I doubt very seriously we'll get to see her today, but that didn't stop me from asking her mommy & daddy - I just wish they'd both grow up & realize what they're doing!!!
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame they're keeping her from this side of the family & the love we could be showing her!!! It infuriates me at times, but there's nothing else I can do...
Very interesting post Rose. Those are some pretty apples from earlier. My stomach specialist highly recommends an apple a day!
ReplyDeleteVery nice Rose...I know you always enjoyed working there even if you did come home really tired.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing some of your past with us. Your post shows how much hard work is involved in getting those apples to the store where we can buy them.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your memories Rose?
ReplyDeleteDoes Lorelei like apples? You can peel and cut one up for Lily and she'll eat the whole thing.
It sounds like hard physical work, Rose. But it's so good to work outdoors.
ReplyDeleteThis heat has really been too much. Today is significantly cooler over here, which is sort of shocking!
ReplyDeleteThe house we live in had a pear tree and within 1-2 months of moving in, it was dead of fireblight. I was really bummed. I love pears.