Coop's Corner: Harvest Time

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Harvest Time

High in the tree
I'm filled with glee
The little masked bandits
Have left them for me!

My electric fence was completely effective and that during-the-night scream that I'd so looked forward to didn't happen, at least I didn't hear it but I have been sleeping quite sound these last nights. We have two small cherry trees and as you can see here, our pesky deer neighbors had been trimming the lower branches before I put the fence up. I'm an Electric Fencer from way back, but that long acquired skill has been in keeping cattle, horses, sheep and (sometimes) goats contained. After daily inspections, one morning it was obvious something had tangled with this current fence and left two wires crisscrossed.

Last year, the night before we planned to harvest, the racoons showed up to foil our plans. I had heard a commotion outside as they were feasting so went out to investigate. Mom and her 4 babies were high in one of the trees, breaking branches and falling from one to the next as they completely gleaned the cherries. I don't mean some or even most, they made EVERY single red fruit disappear. Those cherries that escaped their jaws maybe fell to the ground but there was nothing left in the tree. It isn't like we can't, probably more cheaply, go and buy some frozen cherries. It is as much or more about the fat little buggers ruining our two trees.

My view from up high......

It didn't take me long to get my old cherry-picking touch back but that's only with my right hand. I'm just not ambidextrous enough to do a good job with my left. Just when I think it's working, that hand goes rogue and there's no telling what it will come back with. So, Left Holds Branches, Right Grabs Fruit.

I'm in the 2nd tree today and it seems that listening to Antonia, James and Cafe Del Mar is helping my cause greatly, possibly even making me a better left handed picker. We froze 5# of cleaned and pitted little red ones last night and the 2nd tree will yield that much or more. Lots of work but fun too!

10 comments:

Martha July 21, 2013 at 3:31 PM
Oh THAT'S what you meant by "big beast or little one"...d'oh!

Nice last photo. Those are some real soakers in the background. We just now got hit with a healthy downpour, but nothing enduring.

Ummm. Lovely cherries. Check this out: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2013/07/cherry-mess-recipe/
ReplyDelete
Replies
RichardMJuly 21, 2013 at 8:21 PM
Nice looking cherries. How many trees do you have?
ReplyDelete
Replies
Back RoadJuly 21, 2013 at 8:27 PM
Had to smile when I saw the photo of your electric fence. Looks like you have a strand very close to the ground, maybe for the pesky racoons you mentioned. My Dad was an electric fence stringer as well and he once put a very low electric fence around my Moms' flower garden to keep chickens fron scratching and laying in the cool dirt.

Looks like your plan worked this year and the yield looks might good!
ReplyDelete
Replies
Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayJuly 22, 2013 at 4:48 AM
There is one wire just above the grass and another one 2 T-post savings above that. I added a 3rd wire at knee height to dissuade the deer from nibbling too.

An update to yield.....we have 16 1# bags in the freezer.
ReplyDelete
Replies
SonjaMJuly 22, 2013 at 5:28 AM
Harvest Time, already. Looks mouthwatering. I love cherries. Yumm!
ReplyDelete
Replies
Keith - Circle BlueJuly 23, 2013 at 5:58 AM
I was always amazed anyone got any fruit off a tree between the insects, worms, and varmits. We had a pear tree where I grew up, but seldom got a pear. Up in my area there are now so many deer folks are having trouble growing flowers.
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)