....being stuck in an office cubicle

You may think that this post will be about our harvested bounties of each day....the figs...peaches...plums...and so many other items that we produce here on our farm. You thought wrong.

This is about the time spent with the fruits that are not sold. There is the thinning of the trees in the early of the year....to promote larger fruit and to discourage deformed shapes by the overcrowding. These green "thinnings" are run through our shredder for chicken feed. Hundreds of pounds. Yes.....I said hundreds.

Then comes along a natural process that we call "fruit drop". One tree may have 300 peaches on it....but it will drop fruit for whatever reason. That fruit is collected off the ground......to not only promote a healthy soil environment from mold and bacterial nuisances.......also for chicken feed.

Next in line is the actual harvesting for sales. It's a day to day harvesting schedule as we pick only ripe fruit......not the entire tree crop as so many other farms do. This is extremely time consuming .....but we do have a grand reputation for having the best tasting fruits (it not harvested green)!

Finally......towards the end of the harvesting of orchard(s).....we take in hundreds of pounds for processing. We create jams and jellies during the slow months on the farm....with the summer's fruits. All this has to be cleaned......seeded....and flash frozen.......packaged. This past 10 days had been about 150 pounds per day of preps. Pluots.....figs...and peaches. Oh.....tomatoes too!

With all this going on.....Farmer Deno still has to do the regular farm chores.....about a 12 hour day. Is it worth all this  you may ask? Better than being  stuck in an office cubicle with those florescent lights beating down depression all day long :-)