A picture for Hattie.
To prove that yes, work can be pretty boring. Thank Goodness for the BBC Radio 4 Archives is all I've got to say.
First off the Cherries are picked by the mostly French Canadian University Students that come here every year. The below is a picture of my little brother from last year when we helped with the Harvest Share Programme.
After they are picked the Cherries are shipped to 1 of the 6 packing sheds in our valley. I currently work at the largest of them all. There are about 200 people employed here. The smallest shed only has about 30 people and only ships regionally. We ship cherries all over the world.
Yesterday we shipped to Hong Kong!
This was taken just after we got back from lunch so the cherries aren't on the belts yet.
Before the cherries get to us they are loaded onto the Cluster Buster which breaks apart the clumps of cherries, cools them, and then the clusters that were missed are nabbed by the "Buster Crew".
See these blue tubes? The cherries come down from the Cluster Busters in them in a stream of water. (This job is pretty wet.)
Then basically all we do is sit (or stand) in front of the belts and shuffle the cherries around looking for culls. (a.k.a Icky Cherries) VERY, VERY GENTLY. Otherwise they bruise.
The culls go into that trough full of running water where they are washed into the cull collection area. They are then either squished for juice, sent to Taiwan for jam production (I am never eating commercial jam again.), or turned into fertilizer.
The good cherries continue on to the sizer where they get graded by size ( The smaller the number the better. 7 and 8's are huge cherries that sell for the most, while 12 and 14's are tiny little cherries), through a water cooler for 15 minutes till they are 6 C inside, into "Sweeps" where they are bagged and boxed, through the "Tunnel" where the bags are zipped and the boxes sealed, and finally into Cold Storage where they are stacked onto pallets, cooled to 2 C, and loaded onto trucks that take them to the airport where they are then shipped all over the world. Today in a 12 hour period we shipped 24 000 Kg ( 52 000 Lbs) to Switzerland, Germany, the UK, The US, and Saudi Arabia.
And today was a slow day. On a good day we can motor through up to 34 000 Kg (77 000 Lbs).
In other news: I HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO APPLY TO THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT FOR A WORKING VACATION VISA!!!!!!!! As you can quite possibly tell. I am extremely excited about this achievement.
First off the Cherries are picked by the mostly French Canadian University Students that come here every year. The below is a picture of my little brother from last year when we helped with the Harvest Share Programme.
After they are picked the Cherries are shipped to 1 of the 6 packing sheds in our valley. I currently work at the largest of them all. There are about 200 people employed here. The smallest shed only has about 30 people and only ships regionally. We ship cherries all over the world.
Yesterday we shipped to Hong Kong!
This was taken just after we got back from lunch so the cherries aren't on the belts yet.
Before the cherries get to us they are loaded onto the Cluster Buster which breaks apart the clumps of cherries, cools them, and then the clusters that were missed are nabbed by the "Buster Crew".
See these blue tubes? The cherries come down from the Cluster Busters in them in a stream of water. (This job is pretty wet.)
Then basically all we do is sit (or stand) in front of the belts and shuffle the cherries around looking for culls. (a.k.a Icky Cherries) VERY, VERY GENTLY. Otherwise they bruise.
The culls go into that trough full of running water where they are washed into the cull collection area. They are then either squished for juice, sent to Taiwan for jam production (I am never eating commercial jam again.), or turned into fertilizer.
The good cherries continue on to the sizer where they get graded by size ( The smaller the number the better. 7 and 8's are huge cherries that sell for the most, while 12 and 14's are tiny little cherries), through a water cooler for 15 minutes till they are 6 C inside, into "Sweeps" where they are bagged and boxed, through the "Tunnel" where the bags are zipped and the boxes sealed, and finally into Cold Storage where they are stacked onto pallets, cooled to 2 C, and loaded onto trucks that take them to the airport where they are then shipped all over the world. Today in a 12 hour period we shipped 24 000 Kg ( 52 000 Lbs) to Switzerland, Germany, the UK, The US, and Saudi Arabia.
And today was a slow day. On a good day we can motor through up to 34 000 Kg (77 000 Lbs).
In other news: I HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO APPLY TO THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT FOR A WORKING VACATION VISA!!!!!!!! As you can quite possibly tell. I am extremely excited about this achievement.