If I returned to my former days, in weather like today, I would be wondering could I stand the cold to work or should I just stay home. The photo above was taken in the spring, at the end of pruning. What I am pruning here is some grafts we did of this apple that was huge and red. I cannot even think what we called it...Maybe Garnet Beauty. My boss got the grafts from someone else who did not know what they were....
If I went to work, my boss had to be there on the super cold morning because my picker was pull start and I simply could not start it in the cold. I had a little Echo chain saw, actually I was on my second one when I quit. My boss had a local guy he bought from and he told the guy he needed one easy to start...and they were. Turn the choke on and pull once it fired, turn the choke off and it would start on the second pull. I am sure there were probably a time here and there it didn't but I do not remember them. It only had a 12 inch bar...but I could cut down the oldest apple trees just fine.
When I first started working there, there were 5 long rows of Red Delicious...when I left we had taken out all but one....well, on another row we had grafted Granny Smith.
I would give anything for you to have been there the first year. I worked there 19 years and there was never another year quite like it. The apples were huge! and limbs had to be propped up to hold the weight. I do not know why I didn't take a camera...I think because I was so new. And though it was like coming home the first time I visited the place, I still was not quite comfortable enough to take a camera and take pictures instead of going straight to work. Now I know they would have loved it as much as me.
Enough reminiscing for tonight...
