An end of the day photo taken in the early 80’s, when I spent six weeks working at Shelburne Orchards in MA. It looks like we were picking Red Delicious at the time, though MacIntosh was probably the largest variety by volume. Some of the tools of the trade are at the top: the kidney-shaped picking bag, and a big jug of water, replenished regularly through the day, particularly when it was warm and sunny.
The photo was probably taken with the aforementioned (9/12/18 post) Sigma 18-200mm telephoto lens – see the curved side of the bin? It was truly wonderful but hard work, and in retrospect, i can say the wages were but the icing on the cake.
Here’s a view of the falls mentioned in the previous post, along with a finally balanced cairn. Rumor has it there used to be a brick factory upstream (probably just old factories made of brick), and every year a new batch of tumbled brick arrives. The supply seems endless.
The water level was quite high for our annual Arches trek this year, and with the strong current, I didn’t even try swimming up to the falls, just off camera on the lower right. Unfortunately, that meant missing out on a wonderful last-all-year waterfall massage, one of the gifts of the place. But another – the sound of the waterfall itself – would settle deep into recesses of body and soul over a few hours time. The water itself was refreshing but sooo cold this late in August.
JJ meanwhile fell in love with my $20 “estate sale” guitar, and between us, we covered twenty or so songs, and made up a few originals along the way. Not a bad start for our “One World, One Guitar” tour, coming, perhaps, to a town near you.
There will probably be a few more snowfalls here in western MA, but the sun is getting higher and warmer, and in fact, there is now a four hour window for Vitamin D via sun exposure at this location (10AM-2PM, courtesy of dminder smartphone app). It would be nice to have a small three sided greenhouse for sunbathing this time of the year, to help with the wind; I saw a four sided one recently at Ocean State Job Lot for $40.
Note on the technology: these recent posts were taken on a Fuji 6X7 film camera and seeing the images got me thinking I might have to break out that camera again. There is a subtlety and gradation of color that comes through even in a JPEG on a digital screen. The film was probably Ektachrome EPP, which was somewhat less flamboyant than Fuji Velvia which I also used awhile. Film was digitized via an Epson scanner some 15 years ago, before digital cameras really took off.
An end of the day photo taken in the early 80’s, when I spent six weeks working at Shelburne Orchards in MA. It looks like we were picking Red Delicious at the time, though MacIntosh was probably the largest variety by volume. Some of the tools of the trade are at the top: the kidney-shaped picking bag, and a big jug of water, replenished regularly through the day, particularly when it was warm and sunny.
