Monday, April 11, 2011

The glamorous windmachine crew

Orchard live a life of one season seamlessly rolling into another.  We describe our lives based on the season that we are in when events happen.  Life here is constantly changing and morphing into something new.  New joys and beauty are undoubtedly followed by new stresses and challenges.  I am continually amazed at how the seasons of my life twist and turn taking me from and bringing me back home.  I am feeling especially reflective as a new season has started here on the orchard coinciding with a new chapter of my life.  I am a third generation farmer living, working, and loving orchard life.  I decided when I graduated high school that I was destined for bigger things and broader horizons.  Looking back I think I am the only one who believed that non-sense.  Twisting and turning through my college career I managed to find myself, form my own opinions, "run into" my soul mate, and much to my surprise realize my love for living and working on the orchard.  I came back home after graduating from college and drug my husband along with me kicking and screaming (maybe he came willingly?).  We now both work on the orchard and we feel at home here.  We have welcomed two beautiful children and are blessed to be expecting a third that is due to come in apple season.  We are lucky to share our passion for the farm with another 3rd generation couple who have chosen to make the orchard their livelihood as well.  The beauty we witness everyday is tribute only to god's glory!  I am hoping to share the good times as well as the struggles that face us on our journey through the seasons of life on the orchard.

Spring has sprung and things around here are starting to blossom giving us the new crop that we will harvest in the coming months. 


This is what we refer to as "green tip".  While I am glad to see green and excited about leaves and blossoms--this where all the work begins for the crop to come.  For the next 6 weeks or so we will monitor temperatures and say lots of prayers for no cold nights.  When the temperatures drop below freezing there are some LONG nights for the wind machine crew.   



This is my father--I commonly refer to him as "the cynic".  His glass seems to be half empty for the duration of his work day.  The moment he stepped into the house his half empty glass was always suddenly half full.  He managed to not bring home the stresses of his day to his house full of women.  I am one of his four daughters and while I am the only one who returned to the farm to make my living, I am only one of the four amazing women that he and mother raised.  We all know where home is and there is no better day than the ones we are all home together.  My father was the proud crew leader of the wind machine Crew.  I remember every year he would be making the list and preparing for the long nights ahead.  I could never understand why there was so much grumbling involved.  The wind machine Crew seemed so awesome to me--so glamorous in a way?  Getting all nostalgic for a moment I can remember thinking it was SO cool that my father would leave in the middle of the night to turn on the wind machines.  I didn't associate this job with work at this point in my life.  Little did I understand--wind machines are run in hopes of saving our crops so that we would have food on the table and a roof over our head.  I begged to go out one night so that I could be the "Audrey Hepburn" of the orchard by moonlight!  I admit now that I may have had a jaded view of what the wind machine crew did.  That first night of "Jules lady of the wind machines" proved to me that glamor and wind machines did not belong in the same sentence. 

Wind machines are designed to turn the air around them.  They bring the warmer air that is higher up down and take the cooler air that is on the ground and send it up.  I learned in my first horticulture class in college that this process is called thermal inversion.  The warmer air being brought down and movement of air prevents frost damage to the buds and blossoms allowing the fruit crop to survive.  I had no idea what these fabulous machines did at the "all knowing" age of about 12.  Finally my father conceded to wake me up and let me help with the wind machines one Saturday night.  I laid my clothes out at the end of my bed and ignorantly prayed for a cold front to come through. 


It was my lucky night I thought when my father woke me up, I can remember looking at the clock and it was barely past 2am.  I threw on my clothes and walked as quietly as my excitement would allow me to until I got outside.  It started out fun--donuts and drinks from the convenience store and then out to check all the thermometers.  My fabulous night was all I hoped for so far--but boy did that change fast.  After about 10 minutes and a lot of riding with the window down--I was cold and (yawn) really tired.  About 10 minutes later I was shivering in my sweatshirt, hat, and gloves buried under my dad's spare jacket using a roll of toilet paper for a pillow in the passenger seat of a stinky old farm truck.  This was far from what I had expected when I ventured out with the wind machine crew that night. 

I did not gain the fame and glamour that I had hoped for but I gained two things that are proving to be MUCH more important.  A respect and love for my father that to day is unscathed and a love for our orchard that has brought me back home over and over again.  I praise the lord every day that we are able to live and work at something that we love.   

 The wind machine crew is still headed up by "the cynic", a few dedicated employees and for the first time as of a few nights ago--the third generation is holding up their end too.  I rolled over to my husbands cell phone ringing at 11pm and I had a flashback to that glamorous night I spent on the wind machine crew.  I chuckled and thought he is in for a FABULOUS night--then I happily rolled my pregnant belly back over and drifted back to sleep leaving him to hold up our end of the wind machine crew this time.