Joy From An Orchard

Shirt off and a sitting in the lawn chair, I was styling with the world flying by me at 45 mph. Only the wind in my ears and the squeaky engine belt could be heard between gear shifts. I couldn't help but smile that we were going fruit picking at our friend's orchard. It's an activity that my friends back in Mendo (Chet and Gio) enjoy immensely. Give me a choice between Disney Land and picking fruit, I'd go fruit picking. 

50 pounds of bananas

As we bounced off the road onto the orchard's bumpy land, it looked like a piece of property covered in Christmas ornaments. Trees evenly planted hanging with bulbs of different colors and shapes. Bananas and plantains lined the perimeter with different types of fruit trees planted in the center. Some trees were so laden with fruit that the branches were beginning to break under the weight. It would be an understatement to say they were dripping with fruit. 

As we walked around with our five gallon buckets, we would pluck different types of avacados from the trees, pick up macadamia nuts, and harvest tangelos, oranges, lemons, and tangerines. Gio would climb twenty feet up in a tree and give it a shake as if there were an earthquake. Fruit would subsequently fall from the sky and litter the ground as I would scramble around to fill my bucket before I got bombed by more falling fruit. 

Once a five gallon bucket was full we would go back to the truck and dump it into the bed only to load it up with more. Once we were done picking in one area we would go to another and pick more. The entire time we couldn't help but laugh. We were little kids in a playground and it was all smiles as we drove off smelling like fruit. 

Our truck bed of gold

Enjoying some fresh plantains