Nice Pear!!!

Hello!

Not so off the radar after all! It turns out our Orchard is a short drive from the Maroopna Library, so free tinterweb and blogging!!

Well, the first week of fruit picking is done. We survived with a few scratched (actually quite a lot) and bruised shins – mainly from walking into well camouflaged sprinkler spouts, which REALLY HURTS!!!. The picking is actually good fun once you make it past the 3 day pain barrier. We managed 17 bins (one bin holds half a ton of pears) between us this week at 36 dollars each, and bonus, we found out we only get taxed 13% instead of 40% due to a government incentive to get people picking, as fruit farms are struggling to get staff!! (Why guys, these blog entries are getting more and more riveting by the week I hear you say!;) Yeah sorry at least we aren’t boring you with Pear varieties (willaims and Packhams for those who are interested), where they go and how they are stored!! Although Coca Cola use Pear skin as an ingredient! Interesting huh!

We owe most of our pear knowledge to our quality controller, Mick. Who can be seen in one of the photos next to a bin. He is a bit of a leg-end, and I’m sure sick of our continual pear related questions! Turns out there is more to pears than meets the eye!!

We have fallen on our feet really, not many orchards have campsites on them like ours (which is really nice) and when we arrived we saw loads of pickers from other farms having to hitch hike back to their campsite! The crew are all really nice and not cracking whips, we pick at our own pace and basically do as much – or as little when it’s 38 degrees - as we like! There are some really cool people here from all over the globe, so we have befriended a couple (Craig and Sarah) from Leeds! (always doing our bit for international relations!!) who have emigrated, and have an awesome 7yr old British bull dog, we will try and get some photo’s. he picks pears off the tree, eats them and then farts all night!! Hilarious!!

Anyway, free tinterweb time is running out, so bye for now, hope you are all well and check out all the new photo's, some of Canberra - which we passed through on the way down - there too.

J&J