Harvest Did End

I'm sitting here sobbing as I try to pick out and post the rest of the pictures from harvest, as I promised I would do. I think I am realizing that summer is now over and that it is time to return back to school. I do love Moscow but this summer really has been a tender mercy for me. To be around my family and to be able to participate in so many fun events has been very refreshing and I find myself becoming very emotional about leaving. So for as much as this is painful, I will try to post these pictures and get some more updating done.

I drove a machine called "pan" for harvest this summer. It is the machine that catches all of the cherries that are shook from the trees. I run a conveyor belt on the machine that takes the cherries into a big white bin full of cold water.

The pan machine is a beast by the way! Kyle (my brother) and I were always trying to avoid hitting trees and I am not sure which one of us came out on top. Haha!

Beautiful fruit!
Kyle ran the machine called the shaker. It comes on the other side of the tree. So both of machines come to the same tree on his shakes the tree so that the cherries fall into my machine (I know that might sound kind of confusing). I REALLY wanted to video tape the machine shaking and the pan working but we had some real camera issues and the end of the harvest came pretty abruptly. So unfortunately I did not get it recorded to post.

As I mentioned in my previous post, we worked some pretty insane hours but those hours are some of the most fun I had this summer and some quality time with family and friends. I have so much to be grateful for this summer.

Behind my machine we have the bimbo (the person who pulls out all of the leaves and other yucky things that fall into the bin of cherries). I really enjoyed driving pan for that reason- that I had someone else out there with me that I could see. I am learning that I really do not like to be alone. I just need someone in the same room as me. You would think I would have got over that as a child but it is still something that I have found to occur. I really enjoy being around someone else.

More beautiful crop!
I didn't get a very good picture of the tractor but we had a tractor driver come and bring my pan machine the empty bins with cold water in them and then take away the full bins.
There was also another tractor to shuttle from the cooling pad (where all of the bins of cherries cool off) to the end of the orchard rows.

Here is the cooling pad.
This is one of our workers filling up an empty bin with cold water so that it can be shuttled to my machine.

Here are some of the full cherry bins cooling off. There are spider pipes that get inserted and cold water comes out the bottom of them to cool the cherries. And that's all I've got. I REALLY wanted a picture of our entire crew, but as I mentioned, the harvest really ended quite abrupt. We had to really hurry to get the machines back and most of the crew left before I got in. But I think I may have a few pictures of Kyle and I. I am going to miss that kid!