You’ve probably noticed the arctic air mass from the North Pole, nuzzling in close here for an icy hug. What you might not have thought of are the cold apples in the Northwest and the people struggling to harvest the last of them.
Joe Shelton manages one of the largest fruit orchards in the world here in southeast Washington. He says few things are colder than a picking bag full of 30-pounds of 30-degree fruit strapped close to your body.
This week, Shelton has been running crews until midnight, trying to save the last of the orchard’s fujis and braeburns. All together, Shelton says about 30,000 boxes of apples will probably rot on the trees.
“Yeah, it’s hard. Everyone is kind of deflated, ‘cause we’ve all worked so hard,” Shelton said. “Even all the guys that we have out there pickin’, it’s like a week shorter of harvest. They could have made another weeks wages. You just hate to see them hanging out there and going to nothing.”
Once apples freeze, they can’t go to the fresh market. And Shelton says the juice prices are so low this year it doesn’t pay to pick them.
