You may notice that my devotion to the Blog has waned a little.\u00a0 It isn’t because I care any less about it; it has to do more with fatigue.<\/p>\n
Fifty years ago, we pretty much raised apples and only apples.\u00a0 But as the apple business in the East has waned, we’ve diversified the crops we grow.\u00a0 Today, we find ourselves with a significant amount of fruit coming into season from May until late October.\u00a0 Moreover, instead of selling all our fruit through pretty much one channel (wholesale), we now have an active retail market, sell through Farmers’ Markets, support local grocery stores, and sell to big packing houses.\u00a0 We have to do this to make a profit.<\/p>\n
Long story short, the days are longer than they’ve ever been in this business.\u00a0 I’ve averaged 12 hours a day, six days a week, for six months straight without a single day off.\u00a0 And the work is hard.\u00a0 I’ve dropped two waist sizes despite enjoying desert with every meal.<\/p>\n
I don’t think this problem is unique to my family.\u00a0 In talking with another grower a few weeks ago, he too confessed to being worn out.\u00a0 He offered me a friendly warning about the treadmill that this job can become.\u00a0 He especially warned me about what would happen if we tried to expand the retail operation to 7 days a week.<\/p>\n
So when people start to wax romantic about the farming lifestyle, I’m quick to correct them.\u00a0 At least in my industry, the job is not slow-paced, quiet, or peaceful – at least for the professionals who want to make a living at it.\u00a0 There are many benefits, but a forty hour work week is not one.<\/p>\n
The good news is that there is an end in sight.\u00a0 We are about 3 weeks away from the end of the harvest, and about 5 weeks away from Thanksgiving, at which point we can really give Thanks and maybe take a nap on a Thursday!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You may notice that my devotion to the Blog has waned a little.\u00a0 It isn’t because I care any less about it; it has to do more with fatigue. Fifty years ago, we pretty much raised apples and only apples.\u00a0 But as the apple business in the East has waned, we’ve diversified the crops we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86,"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions\/86"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}