farmlife issue no. 11

Have you ever wondered what it's like to live on an Oregon berry farm? It's farming like it used to be-lots of hand labor-& so interesting. I took my camera out in the field last week & tried to capture a little of the atmosphere of blueberry harvest. It doesn't quite capture the adrenaline & pure craziness of the farm this time of year, but it's a little glimpse. 

As if the harvest itself weren't crazy enought, the weather's been like an obstinate child: it's been excessively hot, raining, cool, and hailing. Not a nice relaxing year. The farmers have been biting their nails over labor issues & fresh market berry prices already. Now the weather's giving them fits!

 They were checking to see if there was any hail damage on the berries. The photo below shows the hail piled up on the sawdust around the base of the plants.

 There was a little damage maybe, but the packers (the warehouses where they take the fresh berries to get sorted, cleaned up, & packaged for the grocery store shelves) are taking whatever the Sinn Farms can give them. I don't understand the market totally (or even moderately), but it's an uncertain one. Fresh berries don't keep long. Plans & packers can change multiple times a day. An early year like this one was means that strawberries are still getting picked, & the labor isn't there. There are days that the blueberries need to get picked tomorrow, and they're not sure if their picking crew is going to show up. They need a hundred pickers, ideally, to get the job done on time. Scrounging up a crew of 100 if yours doesn't show isn't an option.

The picking crew showed up this day: there were 90 people out in the field, sorting off the ripe berries & leaving the green ones behind for another day. They work fast, because they are paid by the pound. A good blueberry picker can make $20/hour. It's a funny balance; the farmers, the pickers, & the packers. One of Dar's brothers is working in the packing industry this summer, so we get all the perspectives. The pickers are treated very fairly & have options of who they want to pick for. They shop around for the best fields. When the berries started turning blue, it's a common sight to see van loads of them cruising around the country, scoping out the best fields!

Almost all pickers work under a contractor these days. A few years ago, Tom was still calling all the pickers & coordinating the time, day, place. If it rained, he called all of them at 5 am & canceled picking for the day. We weighed all the pounds they'd picked & wrote out tickets to keep track of what they'd get paid. All the field sanitation, picking buckets & flats, & ferrying pallets of berries fell on us. A contractor means it's the contractor's business now. Tom & Dar still are out in the field overseeing, but a lot of the managing & detail work is off their shoulders. It's brought a new set of issues, but it's the way it's done now. I don't think it will ever go back. 

This is the father of the contractor: it's easy to spot them because they're duded up.

The pickers are usually dressed warmly with hats & a lot of the women wear bandanas over their faces. 

They have buckets clipped onto belts so they can use both hands to strip off the ripe berries. Since they are paid by the pound, they work really fast & don't waste any time. Mariachi music is usually floating through the air, along with what sounds like light-hearted bantering. (I don't understand Spanish. Wish I did!) A whole air of festivity comes along with the pickers. It's hard, dirty work, but they don't seem to mind it too much. Their whole culture is very festive & together oriented. Sometimes I want to know what they think of us, the "owners". Do they think we are spoiled & rich, that we don't have to do any hard work? Do they disdain us? Or try to cheat us when they can because they are trying to even out the playing field? I hope not. They seem to respect us. I'm starting to recognize a few from previous years, & there's a sense of teamwork. We couldn't do it without them, & without us, they wouldn't have a job. 

After they get enough buckets full, they bring them to a station where they are weighed, dumped into flats, & briefly sorted. They pull out green berries, leaves & stems. Then they are put on pallets.

The full pallets are then loaded into a refrigerated truck, or onto one of the farm's trucks (some of the packers leave refrigerated trucks on site, some require the farmer to haul his own berries in). 

Before the contractor's, taco trucks drove around the countryside, pulling into fields at lunchtime (9-10 am for the pickers). It was one of my favorite parts about harvest! Authentic adobada tacos...mmm. Now, the contractor brings his own taco van. His wife has a grill in the back of her van that she warms the tortillas on & coolers full of meat. 

There's usually a spicy carrot salad, onions, cilantro, limes, & sauces to deck out the tacos. I love them. It's one of the few foods I can equal Dar's eating in. I don't know if I'll ever be able to eat tacos like this without a lingering sense of the hectic, yet exciting feel of harvest time. 

Harvest time is so busy. It is sunrise to past sundown days. The pickers usually quit in the afternoon, especially if it's hot, but that means Dar has loads of berries to drive in to the packers & the lines there can be long. Then it's cleaning up & getting ready for the next day. At 8 pm, he's out getting the blackberry picking crew going. Life is one big blur for him. For Fee & I, we try to get out and see him when we can. We eat lunch with him everyday at the farm. We ride along when he takes loads of berries in. We take snacks out to the night crew.

There are days I resent how much time the farm takes from us. And yet, it is our livelihood. And there is a satisfaction in seeing all the ripe, beautiful berries coming in by the tens of thousands of pounds. Dar loves what he does, & that goes a long way. And we can always come out to the farm to snatch a moment or two. (Sometimes it's just a glimpse.) Unlike other jobs, we can be a small part of the farm. We can be involved, even if it's just by watching from the sidelines. 

So there you are; a little glimpse into our crazy life of harvest.

 Is there something else you're wondering about harvest, or questions I didn't answer? I'd love to answer them! Berry harvest really is cool, & I'm still in awe that this is where I'm at.