from Schomberg's house in Kamloops

So we're back in Kamloops after picking and sorting cherries for 2 weeks. Such good times. Right. We picked for 5 days and made a grand total of $500 dollars between the two of us. That's less than minimum wage, and we worked 8 hours a day starting at 5 in the morning. Not bad for time off in the afternoon but I'll tell you that the beach does wear thin when you have absolutely no where else to go.

We got $2.25 for a bucket like this.

Matt up a ladder. Unfortunately you can't tell he's actually 8 feet in the air.

After picking we moved to Kelowna to go and sort for Dendy Orchards. We figued that we would give something new a try since picking was the worst paying job on the face of the earth. The camp was about 90% francophone, so I didn't feel that at home for the first few days, and it was really busy because there were a lot of people staying in a very small camp. We had to fight down the weeds and sleep on a pretty big slope to even find a place for our tent. Sorting itself is the most boring, mind numbing, finger numbing job. You stand at this little sorting station and pour a bucket of cherries down the centre sloped part.

The packing house.

You then sort the cherries - perfect ones with no flaws go to the export side on your right, ones with flaws go to the left as domestics, and damaged ones are culls and get thrown into the garbage below at your left. And you do this for ever cherry in every bucket - around 100 buckets a day each containing about 375 cherries. Yes, you sort 40,000 cherries in a day. Oh and did I mention that they refrigerate the cherries and the packing house so I'm standing there for 8 hours wearing a winter hat and three shirts and work boots and my feet are numb and I can't pick up the cherries my hands are so cold. Anyways, it turned out to be a profitable adventure, and as much as I'm complaining, I actually did enjoy it and we made $700 in 4 days. Much, much better than picking.

We were supposed to stay longer sorting, but we decided that we wanted to come back to Kamloops and see Anne and take a little holiday in Banff. Then on to Regina on Friday for the Canadian National horse show. I'm really excited to go back to my other life for a bit!