After rather a severe Winter and an extremely windy start to Spring I am hoping the weather will play the game and act appropriately as obviously our livelihood is reliant on settled weather and it’s a long way to go before the fruit reaches maturity.

Growing fruit is not for the faint hearted; one must have nerves of steel.

Last Season we suffered a wee bit of theft so more security cameras are now up and running and our friends in the neighbourhood have assured us they will be on high alert during the Fruit Season and will notify us if they see anything suspicious. Thanks guys.

“Big Bertha” our bird scarer will be up and running once again soon, assisting us greatly in keeping the cheeky birds off the bird netting as their main aim is to “infiltrate and feast.”

The big Orchards have many bird scarers along with somebody riding round shooting most of the day, scaring them off the nets ……none of us here have the time to drive around and it wouldn’t be cost effective to hire someone so Big Bertha is on her own.

This Season she has insisted we find her a friend to help with the workload so Big Barry may join her before the Season kicks off.

I am often asked about ‘Little Toot’, our pump tractor.

Very pleased to report she has coped well with the irrigation and frost-fighting over the past few months but does get a wee bit upset when she hears the big motors, further up the Valley, start up during frost-fighting as she has an inferiority complex about her ‘’small size and her feeble roar.”

She may be small but she definitely has enough grunt to pull the water needed out of the dam via the pump to frost-fight our 17 acres. And of course she does the same job when it comes to irrigating.

Little Toot along with Big Bertha are both valued workmates.

Even after twenty-five Seasons, I still love the sound of the collective hum of the frost-fighting motors within earshot of our Orchard as I know it’s the sound of livelihoods and jobs being saved and at the end of the day it doesn’t matter how big or small our Orchards are, we are all in the same boat, just trying to make a living off the land.