Pear Picking

Our church owns a pear orchard that is all harvested by vounteers. My friend Jill took this picture of me "platform picking". It is the most exciting way to pick pears!! The platform is raised several feet into the air to harvest the tops of the trees. You are harnessed so you can lean way out to pick the pears. The machine then travels down the rows at a slow pace. We fill our cloth "buckets" in front of us and then turn and dump them into the crates behind us. This is the churches only pear orchard and it supplies all the pears to be canned and used in Bishops' storehouses. John Nielson, the farmer, expects well over a million pounds of pears.
Please appriciate the practical fashion I am sporting! I discovered I needed to pull up my socks to minimize the scratches on my legs.
Every year after the harvest I "glean" missed pears off the trees to can for my family. I also have a recipe for a most delicious pear pie.