Old Wooden Bins

Looking at this stack of old bins, I was remembering when we 

first became "Citrus Growers".  How I wanted to buy bins and have

 our name and logo on them.  It only took a couple of seasons to 

realise that was not a profitable idea.

The buyers drop off bins with all different logos and names.

Many are painted over and reclaimed with someone else's logo
 and name and most likely, you'll never see that particular bin again.

I uses to mark the bins when they came in, so I would know

who's was who's.  I even quite doing that, they don't

even know which ones they've dropped off.

Imagine, following a bin of fruit, from the fields, on trucks to 

the packing house or fruit stand, up and down the state from

 season to season.  There's a lot of miles on some of these bins.

Their marks and names are from big outfits and small.

Names you would recognize from your grocery store shelf 

and other's if you follow the farmers markets. Then the countless 

growers like us who's fruit is only know by our buyers and locals

 and seen only in someone else's bins.

Lots of growers are going to the new white plastic bins,

lighter and easier to handle, they say.  Better then the old 

wooden ones, that have to be fixed and are heavy !

Well I like the wooden bins, they have character and history.

After all I'm "old", "need to be fixed" and "heavy"

and I'm a character.