Surviving The Freeze

Sorry !........ I didn't mean to leave you hanging after the

big freeze. We had three days straight of that, not

looking fore ward to my water bill. We run the water

all night till the temp is above 40 in the morning. It helps

to save the trees , not always the fruit. Everything we

have picked so far has no damage.

We picked 14 bins on Thursday and 50 10lb. bags.

6 bins the week before, and yes I drive forklift.

Your right, that's a lot of green in that bin. Oranges

are best after the first of the year, but every one

wants them for Christmas....so we pick.

I've been eating them ( "that's how I test the sugar")

and their not to bad.

We sell what we call "Field Run". They come straight off

the tree into the bin or bag. No sorting, no washing and

no wax. Some of the places we sell to, will run them

through their equipment and box them by size.

We're a small operation and pick when we have orders

to fill, so we'll be harvesting till the end of January,

maybe even into February. As long as it's cold they'll

stay good on the tree into March.

Thursday after we had all the bins pulled our of the

orchard, I when around and laid all the ladders flat on

the ground and tipped the empty bins up on end. Then

took the quad around and made sure everything that

needed to be covered or brought in was taken care of,

so the rain or the wind wouldn't tear things up.

Today is the first day since Friday morning early

that it hasn't been raining cats and dogs.

But the weather man assured us

there is more to come.