Bartlett Pear Harvest our style

Before the farmer left for the day, he stopped by, friendly as can be, and pointed to a little tree, kind of like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. It had a little bow around it, and he told us to wait a couple of weeks to pick the pears. They will be sweet and delicious right off the tree. He put the bow around the tree, because the tree isn't doing so well. They tried to nurse it back to health over the years, and it just doesn't produce much anymore.

"What about all these pears on the ground?"

"We'll be by to clean these up soon, but if you see anything you like, go ahead and have at it."

Well there's an invitation to put the kids to work! So as we were waiting for the washer and dryer delivery (halleluyah chorus), I grabbed a couple of baskets and took the kids into the orchard.

There were quite a number of perfectly good pears. We filled two giant baskets in just a small part of the orchard, enough to fill the entire fridge. Apparently, the ones that are picked at this time need a certain amount of cold storage to reach peak ripeness. We're going to give it a try.

Jesse started to clear out the garden. I'm just about positive I don't want my garden between the shed and barn, and right off the road between orchards, so we're going to clear it out for something else. If we had an unlimited budget, I'd say, extend the barn and build a full on brewery, distillery and tasting room with some room to park a car as well. But that's a bit of a fantasy. It will probably be where our solar panels will go.

For now, we need to clean it up and regrade the land so a river doesn't flow directly to the basement.

I don't like the asphalt. That will come up and be replaced with permeable pavers or gravel. No more runoff.