TRANSCRIPT

Interview with Anne Bridgman - Describes How Farming Isn't an Easy Way of Life

Generally speaking, they've probably learned from people that farming isn't an easy way to make a living and this year in particular you've probably heard, the Puddicombes had severe hail, as did this farm on July 26th and its extremely discouraging to have a crop on the trees and the next morning it's all, well maybe not all, but the vast majority of the fruit is damaged and some to the point of not being saleable and you have to go through and tear it off and sell it for less. And so it's a precarious existence and I don't totally depend on it because I do have another job but other people that do, you know, it's not an easy life and people don't realize how, well maybe in some way they do, but they don't realize how vulnerable and how weather dependant fruit growing in particular is any farming, I guess, is, but in the case of sweet cherries you can go from having a beautiful crop to having a cracked, damaged rotten crop with one huge rainfall if it comes at the wrong time so it is a scary thing to have cherries on the tree in bad weather. And with pick-your-own you're dependant on the weather too because if you have a couple weekends when it rains in cherry time then all of a sudden you've got all these cherries on the tree and they're not getting harvested, too so weather can hit you two ways when you're trying to sell things pick-your-own.