Saturday, July 5, 2008

Whoop-de-doo road

Yesterday as we drove home from California we traversed Hwy 120 which included a section of 10 miles or so with dips - the kind where you loose your stomach if the driver does it just right. It reminded me of the Pearblossom Hwy we used to travel when I was growing up.

Our stake had regular assignment to work on the church welfare farm that included a peach and pear orchard. My dad loves to do things like this so we went on a regular basis. We would get up early on a Saturday morning and drive Pearblossom Hwy. giggling as we drove through miles and miles of dips. Upon arriving we would travel on a trailer pulled by a tractor through the orchard. In the spring we would thin peaches. For an adult they would use their hand as a guide and would thin the peaches so they were no closer together than their outstretched thumb and pinkey. For those of us with smaller hands we were given a measuring device to use. We would go back late summer and pick the peaches. That was the most fun. We would climb on ladders and carefully put our peaches into buckets and then fill the crates on the trailer. These peaches were fully ripe and heading to the cannery. I can't remember if we were supposed to eat them or not but I will be the first to admit that those peaches were the best peaches I have ever had. I can hardly stand to buy them from the store because I know what fresh ripe peaches are really supposed to taste like! We were allowed to buy some for an incredibly cheap price and take them home to can them - which we always did - but that's a story for another day. Thanks to my parents for such great memories. Somehow it never seemed like work to me.

2 comments:

Celisa said...

Cool post! :) I used to go with the Young Women in my ward to the church orchard in Hurricane to thin apricots. Good times, good times. :)

Anonymous said...

I think of those peaches everytime I try to eat a non-ripe one from the store! They were absolutely the best! And those puppies were HUGE! We should have used Whoo-de-doo road in the Jepordy game.