Windsong Orchards
In the mid 70's my dad left his teaching job in Minnesota and bought orchards in Wenatchee, Washington. Up till then I don't think he had ever seen a cherry tree. That started my career as a cherry picker. I was ten years old and required to pick a lug a day. A lug is about 35 pounds of cherries. It would take me what seemed like all day. My sister and I couldn't quit till the our work was done. A lug paid $2.35. My first year I made $40 (I am sure my dad padded my check a little) I had to save some of it, the rest I spent on a beautifully made, stuffed, Beatrix Potter Benjamin Bunny with a green beret.
Every year I picked faster and more. I loved it. I could work for 2 weeks and make a couple thousand dollars. Work in the orchard taught me so many things. It was how I patterned my own business. The more and harder you work the more you get paid, piece work. Always calculating, always trying to figure out how to do the job faster and better. The job also taught me to get up early and get the job done.
Our orchards were named Windsong Orchards, a lot of orchards are just the last name of the owner, but my mom wanted a pretty name and thus Windsong came into being. She would have liked to have flowers planted around the base of each tree and the grass completely manicured. With thousands and thousands of trees, and hundreds of migrant pickers tramping thru the rows of trees, that dream never happened. The donkey with the baskets on his back, and a flower garland around his head, that really didn't happen either, I don't understand why. My dad chose to use big wooden bins that would hold 800 pounds of cherries, loaded onto a trailer pulled by a green John Deere or red Masey Ferguson tractor. The red tractor was always my favorite just because it was so colorful against the green trees.
This particular piece of art was inspired by a wedding invitation I did this year. The bride's favorite color was red and her wedding was in July. She had seen some art I had done with a cute apple border and suggested I do something like that for her invitations. Since her dad owns cherry orchards and since cherries are picked in June and July, I suggested going that route. The invitations turned out adorable. I was able to attend the wedding, which was beautiful, and at the reception there were beautiful arrangements with 9 row cherries (the size of a quarter or larger, basically the biggest cherries on the chart). The border from the month of June was the border used on her invitations. I just had to incorporate it's cuteness into my 2014 calendar.
