Tags
apples, bangor, boston, fritz, maine, old mcdonald, painting.freight trains, s., scott, springvale
s. sits, sort of, leaning on the ladder. he's thirty feet up leaning into the apple tree suspended by a small limb. the tree is swaying in gusts from the ocean. s. looks out over the orchard and the grassy fields to the atlantic. the early morning september air has a rare clarity. the sun is risiing. he is a conscious part of the whole, which is infinite. he is without words or thought.
a week ago, s. was at the circle in the square. fritz and he were listening to a giant hippie extol the virtues of apple picking. he was recruiting for the apple farmers in maine. this seven foot youth had picked the year before and promised that they might make a thousand dollars if they picked from september 15th to october 15th.
when s. arrived at mcdonald's farm (yes, really) fritz was already there. the picking wouldn't start for a few days. fritz and s. scoured the dank woods for mushrooms. they found 30 varieties and sitting at the dining table under the watchful eyes of the five nova scotians, they sampled little bits of each of them to test their psycotropic properties.
"anything that will get you close to death, will get you high." doc stanley had said.
also in the bunkhouse was the portly 'cook' who was also the tractor driver. he moved the big wooden bins from the orchards to a cool storage warehouse.
they picked the apples from three orchards. the hours were 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.. at midday, for half an hour they ate two cheese and baloney sandwiches on white bread. if you took a little nap which was very tempting, you wouldn't be able to make yourself go back to work.
the work was strenuous and at dinner s. and all the other men would polish off not only a whole baked chicken apiece but also biscuits, potatoes and vegetables, plus a salad and apple juice; no coffee.
breakfast was at six, and you'd better get up in time.
a table would be set already with platters piled high with bacon and sausages. an unlimited supply of fried or scrambled eggs and even pancakes with real maple syrup.
the first few trips up the thirty foot ladder with a belly bucket were the hardest. but soon breakfast was digested and a good flow of power could be felt from it.
s. soon found out that apple picking was quite an art. the ladder narrowed to a single wooden tip about 18 inches long and sandwiched between the two side rails. this was called the 'feeler'. sometimes it was only the feeler pressing precariously on a flimsy high branch. you picked both sides and into the tree.
for speed you picked with both hands on the way up and on the way down until your bucket was full. then with two knotted cords you released the canvas bottom to let the apples gently roll into the bushel basket; which itself was later carefully poured into the big bin. that's how they knew how much to pay you. each day they counted your brimming bushels; .25 cents a bushel.
on the first interminable day, it seemed, s. and fritz picked 40 bushels each. that would be ten dollars pay. even if you only picked those 40 bushels for thirty days you would go home with $300., a tidy sum in those days.
s. studied the nova scotians and asked a lot of questions because they were all picking 90 bushels a day. that's where the 'art' comes in. of course the scotians had been doing this all their life. they migrated north to their home orchards. their 'season' lasted for three months.
with the help of the seasoned pickers s. was soon picking 90 bushels a day. fritz picked at his own leisurely pace and stayed at the unambitious 40 bushels.
one day fritz persuaded s. to hitch hike to portland to score some grass. but portland was dry. they hopped a freight to boston, scored and returned late at night on that freight train.
"freight train, freight train goin' so fast…." :sing:
the hypnotic rhythm of the steel wheels on tracks clacking clacking as they barreled through the crisp starry night, put them both to sleep for three hours. then the sun rising blasted into the open car door. they were close to bangor, the end of the line. from there they hitched easily to springvale. they missed breakfast and picking until noon was excruciating.
nobody said anything for a few days about their awol disappearance. then mr. mcdonald who was a wonderfully kind middle aged man with a large family, summoned s. to a private conference. he was the very picture of the farmer with denim overalls and a plaid flannel shirt.
s. hated confrontations but listened attentively.
"gonna let fritz go. he's not picking very well and i think he's a bad influence on you. since you pick a good share, you can stay." he paused, ruminating as he relit his briar pipe, "but we have to fire fritz. he can go to one of the other orchards, we'll arrange all that."
mcdonald also knew that fritz and s. would sometimes smoke a large bowl up in the branches. the pot always slows things down.
out of loyalty to his friend s. said, " i understand you need to get all these apples picked before a frost kills them, but fritz is not going to influence me anymore. please let him stay. i'll get him to pick a little harder."
"no, i'm sorry, he has to go."
"then i have to go too."
reluctantly, mr. mcdonald gave in and fritz and s. picked until the end of the season without any more holidays.
in a month the crew picked three orchards clean, down to the last apple on the last tree, so the field mice would have nothing to live on through the winter; they burrowed into the roots of trees. that could kill a tree.
the last week they picked the 'cortlands' (a large cooking apple) the cortlands grew in swollen clusters; you had only to kind of crack the cluster and the big apples rolled down your arms into the busket. the buckets filled fast and so did the bushels. the best nova scotian picked a whopping 165 bushels on each those days. s. was happy with 135. even fritz picked 60 bushels in the cortland orchard high on the hills overlooking the atlantic ocean.
" the hours were 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.. at midday, for half an hour they ate two cheese and baloney sandwiches on white bread. if you took a little nap which was very tempting, you wouldn't be able to make yourself go back to work."I can not even imagine!"out of loyalty to his friend s. said, " i understand you need to get all these apples picked before a frost kills them, but fritz is not going to influence me anymore. please let him stay. i'll get him to pick a little harder.""no, i'm sorry, he has to go.""then i have to go too." "somehow I did not expect anything less.."the best nova scotian picked a whopping 165 bushels on each those days. s. was happy with 135. even fritz picked 60 bushels in the cortland orchard high on the hills overlooking the atlantic ocean.":hat:" the tree is swaying in gusts from the ocean. s. looks out over the orchard and the grassy fields to the atlantic. the early morning september air has a rare clarity. the sun is risiing. he is a conscious part of the whole, which is infinite. he is without words or thought."it feels like I see it and being there :heart:***************** s. is out of the dog house :p
Originally posted by I_ArtMan:
I can almost smell the sweat on you and see that shirt glued on your skin :heart:
Make one.
no. they never got sore. but my muscles were sore for a few days. by the end of the season i was in great shape. and very happy with $560 in my pocket, the world was my oyster. 🙂 you will remember that those were the days you could buy a house for $3,500.
Originally posted by I_ArtMan:
:doh: but of course! I have a feeling I get closer and closer to the new love of s.'s in PA… hmmmmmmm I hate imagining things! YOU MAKE ME ANXIOUS NOW MELI, I WILL TAME MY WILD IMAGINATION TILL THE NEXT ENTRY! (oops my caps were locked! ):D
Never knew the subject of apple picking could be so interesting Scott. Enjoyed this. By any chance did your fingers or hands get sore?
oh, what a relief. my meli :heart:, likes men who love work; and work is the name of the game after the next episode, (and the final episode of "the desultory life of the artist as a young reprobate"), "the hall of the mountain king", where s. reaches the pinnacle of the benign branch of the 'devotees of chemical enhancement', the infamous chateau, "castalia" in the mountains made famous by "rip van winkle", the catskills.
gulp. why isn't there a smiley for 'gulp' ? 💡
is that an order?*pulls up gimp and gets down to business. 💡
Just sayin….(I already did) you're the artist. Who better to design smileys that we are lacking?
The trick is to get the powers that be on Opera to add them to our smiley box. I think there is a way to do that, though. Just haven't been able to get instructions for doing so that are simple enough for my brain to grasp.
Saving it.
linda, but it's too big. a smiley is supposed to be smaller. :smile:san, but you got into it right? i call it the elite picking. in florida, guys stand on the ground with giant tubes and suck oranges into a truck all day. apple picking is like ballet. tips of the toes, balancing perfectly, economy of motion… :happy:
one smiley delivered post haste… i never made one before. i think i'll animate one next time. :cool:that's my version of 'gulp'
Oh man I picked apples one summer many years ago. That's hard work. Just reading this made my shoulders ache. :faint:
No I didn't really like it, not at all, seemed to take so long to fill up a bin. Not as bad as cherries though. I liked tree planting way better, you could move around, cover so much ground, and plant 5000 trees in a day.
not as bad as cherries. i know. i picked cherries one day too. ugh!the tree planting sounds good. 🙂
You get into a nice zone with the planting, very zen when you get good at it, no wasted movements.
exactlyThe best part though was living out in the bush with cool hippie free spirits; working hard all day and then playing music around the campfire at night.
cool. sounds like good work. sorry i missed that job. no wasted movements interests me a lot. the rhythm of work is only understood in the doing.
ahhh, nice scene. a luscious experience. 🙂
good one allan. sometimes we just have to dig deep when we comment. i love it. i agree also about that sound. :happy:
I could comment on a number of issues in this entry – my choice is to say that I suddenly realize that I haven't heard the clickety-clack of railroad tracks for ages! Now they've welded the tracks together in order to let the train go smoother and therefore faster – but I realize now how I miss that sound.
''mcdonald's farm (yes really) '' 😀
hi lea :heart: "old mcdonald had a farm, ee i ee i oooo" :sing:
:flirt: 😆 :up: :sing:
Do you abide by cider house rules there? :p
:DYou'll have to ask my cousin. Cause I've only seen about 15 minutes of the movie and have never read the book.
Good tale. :up: What did the field mice eat then I am wondering. My cousin has a small apple orchard at Sedro-Wooley. Every year he harvests the apples and has the neighbors in to make apple cider. So I guess you could call it a cider party.
is that the one that starts out in an orphanage? and michael caine talks to the children about how special they are?ed, i know sedro wooley. passed through there many times going from camano island to rockport. 'flatlanders', we call them. :cool:hi linda :happy: nice to see you.
ed,he must have heard it before. i wonder what they call the mountain people to retaliate. it is a kind of derisive appellation… maybe 'upriver rats'. 🙂
:lol:Ha! Those flatlanders! I'll have to tell my cousin that the next time I go over. :up:
Ha. I've been to Bangor, Scott. Father used to call the drive from the international border the 'airliner route'. I came through in .83 and went down by the coast on a motorcycle after many years away from N.B. I got to Grand Manan Island that trip ( mother is originally from there – also many years ago ) but was really struck by the 'waves' of the land. It seemed like 'rollers' transplanted to soil.I did more potato picking than anything else as a boy- like blueberry raking.The quip for that wasn't ballet : "Strong Back and Weak Mind!"These days I operate a bale picker….and get to roll around on the ground playing with ag equipment. It sure likes to break.
Originally posted by oldephartte:
farm work is good healthy work but not for individualists who intend to set the world on fire. i've always admired normal people for keeping it simple. :happy:
stranger in a strange land… great fiction.everything really just happens. that is what i am trying to demonstrate with my stories about s. and anything can happen. that's pretty exciting when you think of it.
Sounds like K.I.S.S. to me!I was a city boy without money for mechanical hobbies and too mobile for long relationships. Reading was my refuge : Heinlein's 'too smart' people not anyone I knew! So a chance to work with my hands was rare…and grumbling about it pro forma to fit in.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_consciousuniverse.htm#Additional_InformationJust to add to an already impossible reading list.
thank you my new friend. it is an amazing reading list."If you wish to hear new things in a new way, you must lis- ten in a new way." same thing goes for reading. we don't have time to read everything. but there is plenty of time to choose well and read well.
:hat: