The pear farm
Our church, The church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints is very involved in Humanitarian service. If you are interested about it you can read more here and here. As part of this humanitarian effort the church owns things like cattle farms and orchards to help supply food to those in need. There is a large pear farm near where we live that they can all the pears and send them to areas in need. The church has asked that every LDS member in the area donate 12 hours of their time over the next 3 weeks of pear picking season.
Eric and I went to go work there this morning and I was so impressed. The people in this area have been doing this for YEARS. The people we picked next to said it is a local tradition. They also said that LDS members that live hours away will drive in on a Sat to help pick and some bring out campers and stay for a week.The trees were LOADED with beautiful pears. I mentioned to someone there must be by divine intervention to have trees that full. He agreed and said this orchard has the highest yield in the valley. Last year they produced 1.6 million pounds of pears and this year they are projecting 2 million pounds.
It was really impressive seeing so many people willing to donate their time for charity. I saw several senior citizens. One lady had a really hard time walking but she had her basket strapped around her and was picking. (I had to take photos when no one was looking because I didn't want to seem like a slacker.)
It was very organized. As we arrived and signed in they asked if we had picked before. Since we had not we were "trained". They are very serious about it. There was a list of rules like you must wash your hands before touching the pairs and if you have diarrhea you are not allowed to pick(I'm not sure how they check or enforce that). They do not allow anyone under 12 to pick because pears are so fragile. We had orange rings to measure the fruit and if it was to small we left it on the tree. If any pear hit the ground you had to leave it there... I felt so wasteful because I was clumsy and kept dropping them.
We filled several of these huge plastic bins today and I'm sure we will fill many more in the next few weeks.
6 comments:
When I was a young boy and Eric was even younger, the church had a large orange grove in the Orangecrest area. We would go out and pick oranges. I do have to say as a 13 year old boy, I was not as excited about spending an early Saturday morning picking oranges. When the call came out early in the winter morning, Dad volunteer to go light smudge pots to keep the trees warm.
I am happy Eric has had the fruit picking experience. I would not want him to miss out on the experience. It would be nice if the orange trees were still out there.
This post brings back memories of going to the pear farm. I'm not sure if they still do this, but when I lived there you could buy the fruit from the ground for super cheap.
It is so good to be of service especially in this way. I'm glad you were a slacker and took some pictures.
This is just awesome. I have always told Tasha that I admire that about your church, the service!
I remember our stake getting a surplus of apples from the Bishops Farm and having appplesauce out the waZOO! Were you allowed to bring the pears that had fallen on the ground home at least? I love pears! A friend here has a yard full an it is so nice that she shares. I love that in our wal-mart world, the Church still has farms and manufactures its own real food for its programs. So wonderful!
Tasha-
If you have volunteered you can ground glean pears from the ground for $2 per 40# box (boxes NOT provided) or u-pick off the tree in designated areas only at $10 per 40# box (boxes NOT provided).
Not too bad, huh. I am debating getting a dehydrator and making pear chips!
Post a Comment