Once the potatoes were finished we were lucky to be offered a place working in the cherry tree nursery on the same farm. We had been told that the work was going to be harder and it was getting cold so I wasn't keen but James wanted to give it a go so we decided to stay. Turned out I loved it! First day out was freezing though and there was more frost on the ground than I had seen before. The others just laughed at me and said if we stay another 2 months we would see what real frost was. If I were to summarise the job in one sentence it would be... dig trees out to put on tractor, knock soil off the roots, rebury trees in loose soil to be retaken out again and put on truck! I thought it was nuts but the longer we did it the more I learnt and one thing I appreciate it is that if I ever teach a bare rooting technique as part of farming I will be a better teacher for the experience.
Ok so more detail! Because we finished the spuds a few weeks early the leaves hadn't fully fallen off the trees so the first thing was to strip the leaves off so that the trees didn't dry out once dug up by the tractor and moved. Then with these rubber mallets we knocked the trees till all the soil was off the roots. This was fairly tough work when the trees were large but fairly easy when they were small. It was at the point when the tractor had finished digging up the trees that James made a point of singing.. stop... hammer time!! And in case you hadn't picked it up it was not lost on us that we spent most of our days stripping followed by banging. We did consider telling the boss that others with the same job description earned a lot more ;)
Possibly the hardest work was re burying the trees which meant shovelling dirt over the roots. The song for this part of the job was "everybody's shovelling". I was convinced that I was growing a muscle! No really I was sure of it but regardless of my hours in the fields I fear that I have come out with as feeble looking arms as before regardless of the increase in my strength. James on the other hand.. well ;)
I got to learn how to drive a tractor making all the backpackers so jealous and I loved it and would have done it all day!
I have learnt that there are hundreds of types of cherry trees and people will buy ones that don't even have fruit just for decoration!!! I preferred this work to the potatoes because it was far more social and less back breaking mostly, but most of all I loved the variety. There was lots of different tasks some i haven't mentioned but we were kept busy for sure and the pay was much better. It was 9 hours everyday come rain or shine but that meant we knew what to expect with our time and budget.
We could move our caravan to the shed and got power which made more than a world of difference and my electric blanket kept me going in the freezingness at night. All in all the work was hard but good and really good experience! All the photos I have of it are on my phone and the cable has been chewed to pieces by the puppy where we are staying haha but ill get them up. Here are some: the cheery trees on the ground on a misty morning, the sunset from our new caravan spot and last but not least the crew after a cold and rainy day up to our eyelids in mud.
Ok so more detail! Because we finished the spuds a few weeks early the leaves hadn't fully fallen off the trees so the first thing was to strip the leaves off so that the trees didn't dry out once dug up by the tractor and moved. Then with these rubber mallets we knocked the trees till all the soil was off the roots. This was fairly tough work when the trees were large but fairly easy when they were small. It was at the point when the tractor had finished digging up the trees that James made a point of singing.. stop... hammer time!! And in case you hadn't picked it up it was not lost on us that we spent most of our days stripping followed by banging. We did consider telling the boss that others with the same job description earned a lot more ;)
Possibly the hardest work was re burying the trees which meant shovelling dirt over the roots. The song for this part of the job was "everybody's shovelling". I was convinced that I was growing a muscle! No really I was sure of it but regardless of my hours in the fields I fear that I have come out with as feeble looking arms as before regardless of the increase in my strength. James on the other hand.. well ;)
I got to learn how to drive a tractor making all the backpackers so jealous and I loved it and would have done it all day!
I have learnt that there are hundreds of types of cherry trees and people will buy ones that don't even have fruit just for decoration!!! I preferred this work to the potatoes because it was far more social and less back breaking mostly, but most of all I loved the variety. There was lots of different tasks some i haven't mentioned but we were kept busy for sure and the pay was much better. It was 9 hours everyday come rain or shine but that meant we knew what to expect with our time and budget.
We could move our caravan to the shed and got power which made more than a world of difference and my electric blanket kept me going in the freezingness at night. All in all the work was hard but good and really good experience! All the photos I have of it are on my phone and the cable has been chewed to pieces by the puppy where we are staying haha but ill get them up. Here are some: the cheery trees on the ground on a misty morning, the sunset from our new caravan spot and last but not least the crew after a cold and rainy day up to our eyelids in mud.
Wow! Team mud! You guys are certainly getting some experience of the world.
ReplyDeleteI thought England was supposed to be the country of Mud? Such a wildly different and exciting time you have.
ReplyDelete