The past few years of harvest had been pretty low key for me: I went & helped in the field, but only for a few hours at a time. I enjoyed seeing the process, meeting the workers, seeing the berries come in. Last summer, I worked full-time at Willamette Valley Pie, so I was rarely in the field. This year, I found out how crazy harvest can really be!
We harvested our blackberry field for the first time; this was Dar's field, so it was all on him. He had to make all the decisions & organize the crews & make sure everything was on track. His dad is always there to ask questions & he helps so much-we couldn't do it without him!-but it was still a lot more stress than either of us had felt the last few harvests.
That said, (and a few weeks after the really crazy busyness), I did enjoy it. I'm glad, SO glad, it's almost over, but I enjoyed the opportunity to be there in the field.
Dar hadn't been planning on picking the blackberries for fresh market, but one of his cousins that works for a company that packs out fresh berries asked if he'd be willing to try it out for a day because they had some big orders to fill. Dar tried it. He asked if I could come help count out clamshells & hand out crates to the fieldworkers & keep track of how much was picked. I did, blissfully unaware that for the next ten days, that was going to be our life. I was counting clamshells in my sleep!
It was pretty cool to see the berries go straight into the container they were going to be in when purchased by the customer. As many berries as we picked, thousands & thousands of pounds, I'm curious to see how big of a chunk of Oregon's grocery store's fresh blackberries we supplied...
Really, though, I am grateful. Prices for fresh market berries are much higher than for machine-picked berries, which go into IQF packs, purees, juices, jams, etc. We got to work side-by-side part of the time. I got to see Dar in his element, reaping the benefits of the two years of work he'd put into this field. The fieldworkers are mostly migrant Hispanic workers, (all are Hispanic, but not all migrant), so I got to learn some Spanish. I had to pull up Google translate a few times, but by the end, I was able to roughly communicate. Berry words are all I know though! I can tell you not to pick soft berries & ask you how many crates you picked, but that's about it:).
There was a neat sense of camaraderie out in the field: I learned to appreciate their hard work ethic. It was hot & dusty work. They'd start at 5:30 & pick til 12 sometimes. Oregon's been very, very dry, & the dust was so deep, I'd leave footprints an inch down. The berry canes were wild & grew in a canopy over the rows, so at least there was some shade! I even got there & picked a few crates when things were slow.
Fiona was a jewel throughout this whole time of craziness. Grandma Sinn was there, as always, to step in & watch her when I was working. I missed her-in her short life, we'd never been apart for more than a few hours! And I'm grateful for that too, that usually, I don't have to work & can be at home with her.
We are done with fresh market berries now though. The rest of the field will just be machine-picked. And that only has to be done once a week & at night, so Dar has slowed way down, too.
It has been a crazy harvest. I finally feel like I'm getting my thoughts back to coherency after all that. Next year, I'll be a little more prepared for weeks of rushing around, counting clamshells, & I'll have some meals in the freezer.
But like I said before, I am grateful for the harvest. It was a good year. God took care of us above & beyond what I was expecting, financially, physically, mentally. As He always does!
But I'm still glad it's nearly over;)!
