Murphy's Law

Things have been more than busy here on the orchard, we had no idea it could get this intense. When peach season is in full swing, everything else is instantly put on pause until the end of the season and every peach is gone. Their most popular peach, the red havens, just happened to ripen at the beginning of the hottest week of the year and it seems like every family in a 50 mile radius wants them. Parents with kids come out to pick a box or two, elderly couples come in and buy the pre-picked boxes and the Amish come by at last twice a week and pick between 10 and 20 bushels. Apart from keeping the store fully stocked at all times, our biggest goal is to try our hardest to keep up with Luke, the owner of the farm. This guy is a machine. He wakes up before everyone else, goes to work in the coal mines all morning and afternoon, then comes home and works on the farm until it’s too dark to see. Always going, no breaks, from sun up to sun down. He’s a hard one to keep up with, but Daniel and I are really building up our endurance. I feel stronger now than I’ve ever been. I just wish it was enough.

Since the heat had been so stifling (with humidity, it felt about 110) we could only go out picking 5am-9am then 5pm to sundown. To fill that space, the Lovell’s friend’s the Bravards who own the Vineyard they took us to a week ago called and said they needed some help bottling wine. This sounded like an amazing opportunity for us. So with Rosi and Luke’s permission we took the side job. The bottling room for the vineyard is amazing. It’s a big building made of concrete blocks and stone that he built himself. The door to the building is 4 in thick wood and makes the whole thing look like a castle. They are prepared to withstand a siege. Jim Bravard is a really nice guy and was more than willing to share all his wine-making knowledge with us, from the different kinds of wine to the most important thing; Sanitation. We basically manned assembly line jobs. Jim bottled the wine, I corked it, then Daniel put on the seals and boxed them up. Even though it was repetitive work, the good company and air conditioned room made it a fun time. We went out to help twice bottling white wines and would have gone back but the orchard really needed our help.

The walk in cooler for the store broke down and the peaches couldn’t stay in there anymore. We moved the peaches where ever we could find cool air. All the refrigerators got filled first, then we resorted to cranking up the AC in the house and packing the boxes in the kitchen around the floor vents. Of course the moment the cooler went out and we had to watch how many peaches we could store, everyone wanted the prepicked ones. Murphy’s Law. Dan and I were out all day picking bushel after bushel. Rosi even called up a few Amish families and they came out and picked. Then a school called in the mist of all the "crazy", and scheduled a tour for 25 small children the morning of a farmer’s market. We had to decide whether to go to the market and sell the peaches we had to get rid of or take the school group. We picked the school and ran around the whole night before and morning of making sure everything was perfect for them. We even prepared 25 goodie bags of peaches for the children to take home with them. We were all excited after all our hard work then we sat back and waited. And waited... And waited... Finally, Rosi called them up and talked to one of the administrators. They said that they had never even heard of a tour scheduled, so they told her they would call back once it got straightened out. They never called back. Again, Murphy’s Law.

Things really started turning around yesterday. Me, Rosi, and Daniel decided it was going to be a good day regardless of anything. In the morning we listened to some relaxing music sitting on hay bales under a tree then went in and ate some fantastic French toast Rosi had made to celebrate Maddie’s 9th birthday. I cleaned the dishes then Dan and I went and over tended the store while Rosi took Maddie and Hank to the humane society to see if a stray puppy they found had an owner. It didn’t and Maddie got a puppy for her birthday. YaY! When Luke got home that night and the kids were gone we piled into the truck and drove down to the back of the orchard to check out which peaches were next to be picked. The Bounty peaches were huge! The size of a baby’s head and just as soft (awkward joke). We decided that these were the peaches that would make farmer’s market and proceeded to pick as many as humanly possible. We filled the truck to bursting then munched on some wild blackberries before heading back to the house. All the peaches got lined up on the kitchen floor next to the vent until there was only a little bit of walking space. Daniel and I then vacated the house and moved back to our apartment to shower and eat steak and watch true blood.

At 5 o’clock in the morning we woke up and loaded up the truck and Rosi and I got to the farmer’s market by 6. We were sold out by 7:30. It was like god shined down on our truck and announced that these peaches were the key to eternal life.
After we got back, the day was kinda chill. I crochet some stuffed animals then made raised beds for Rosi’s herbs. I took the idea for them from the farm in Indiana and used some of the old tires that were laying around and made them look all pretty. Daniel cleaned up and organized around the front and back yard. Its nice doing things outside that make them happy that also isn’t just picking peaches. It was like a vacation.