It is 5 am and things are getting noisy here as everyone is arriving and getting their equipment started. Harvest is going strong so most of these guys put in long hours. Mechanics work all night sometimes to keep all the trucks ready for the next day. After the last shift on Saturday they shut everything down and turn the huller off. The huller is the big tank that the almonds go into to shuck off the outside husk. It runs 24 hours a day and makes a lot of noise so when it goes off from Sunday morning at 6am till Monday morning at 6am it is so quiet here that it is spooky. I have a hard time sleeping on Sunday night!
From the huller, the shells and husks are conveyed along these huge white pipes in the air and they fall out holes, one of the pipes has holes for the husks and another pipe is holes for the smaller ground for feed. When the pile reaches the top the shells move on to the next hole and so forth. This makes huge piles of shells. Farms and ranches purchase this byproduct. They grind the outside husks for cattle feed and buy the inside shell for bedding in their pens. Nothing is wasted here. I will attach a picture of the huller, the pipe lines filling, and a picture of Dad next to mounds of almonds.
As they bring in the trucks from the orchards they have to be weighed on these big truck scales and recorded. Then they are taken out behind the plant into these big fields and dumped in piles. When the pile gets so big they cover them with white plastic and fumigate under them to keep things safe until they can be transferred to the hullers to begin processing. As the harvest moves along the back fields gets full of acres and acres of big white mounds. This week we went out on the pistachio harvest. I’ll tell you about that next week.
It has been a busy week with scouts, feeding missionaries, etc. Friday night we had a ward general conference bingo party. We met and talked about all the things relating to conference and then played bingo using questions from conference related things. It was a lot of fun. Everyone brought either a dessert or appetizer. These people love to get together and eat!!
Saturday night we had a baptism of a young girl (16) and then I drove a group of ladies to Bakersfield to watch the Women’s conference. What a wonderful conference. Hope you were all able to go or watch it later. Monday night we went to the Browning’s for Family Home Evening. They are such neat people.
Tuesday Sister Browning and I spent the day in Bakersfield shopping and running errands. Got home just in time to get things ready for scouts. Yesterday was the monthly South Valley Wives club cooking meeting. The topic was cranberries. We sampled lots of wonderful things! We have our monthly meeting with the general manager of this farm in a few hours and then we are planning to leave around 1pm for San Diego.
This weekend is the big air show at Miramar and on Friday it is just for the military so Corey is taking the day off and we will play! Then we will stay there and watch conference and Dad and Corey will get to go to Priesthood session together. How he wishes that you could be here too, Jason. It’s been too many years since he has gone with his boys. He is also missing going with the grandsons. That has been so wonderful. Hopefully all of the Utah group will be together and Jason and Brandon. Some year we need to have us all together for conference!
We will leave San Diego early Monday morning and drive up the coast to Ventura to pick up some handcart wheels we left there a month ago and then on back to Wasco. Can hardly wait to get on the road today!
Dad has been working hard to finish the home they are on now so that next week we can get back to our two homes here on site. Last night when he got home he was all white. They had rolled and sprayed the rooms and all the doors. They wore those white bunny suits, stocking head coverings and safety glasses and foot coverings. Looked like Martians, only white! Hey Jason—Maybe they were the Marshmallow men!! Still he managed to get paint all over his hands and face, even stuck to his eyelashes.
We have been watching the series On Sacred Ground with Truman Madsen. It is his reflections of the life of the Prophet Joseph Smith. We have been using that for our study time together. Much of the Prophet Joseph’s influence has been brief encounters with people where he has shown love and concern for them as individuals. Much of our missionary experiences, and your daily encounters are one on one with individuals where we can also show love and concern. So each one of you have the opportunity to influence for good daily the people you come in contact with just by the way you are living your lives. The work of our Heavenly Father mostly comes in small ways as we connect and change hearts.
We love you and stand in awe of who you really are!! Honor bright!!
Mom & Dad
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