Part 2 of Orange Picking February 12, 2008

On Saturday Darrell and I went back to the orange groves to pick more oranges. This time there were about 20 other people. The purpose for this picking was for an organization called The House of Hope. They give food to low income families. Darrell got the honorary job of driving the lawnmower tractor and transporting the oranges back to the truck for loading. We all jumped on the back, but we soon jumped back off when we were being driven straight into to tree branches. Lin was running around making sure everyone was picking the way he had specifically instructed us to do. This older couple that seemed to be from NY because of their accents were nagging at eachother. And I was busy loading up the oranges Darrell was yanking off the trees. I decided to switch with an older lady with the job of climbing a ladder and picking the oranges high up a tree. Now I must admit I am a big chicken. It just doesn’t seem safe to be leaning on a ladder that high and the only support available are scrawny branches. Well anyways I did it for a while until Darrell wanted to take over. I was little hesitant, but he did such a fine job last time that I didn’t worry about it. However, I soon changed my mind when Darrell was climbing the ladder completely parallel to the tree. I kept telling him to please angle the ladder more. His response, “oh you PWs (powerful women) are all the same.” Well what was I to do with that? So I just held on to the ladder and hoped he wouldn’t fall. When I decided to go pick up some of the oranges that were piling up I heard a woman yell “Darrell!” When I turned and looked Darrell was grabbing onto the tree for dear life trying not to fall. I couldn’t help I was so worried. He was able to jump down with out harm. His response to me was “I hope you got a picture of that” and I said “Sorry I didn’t I was too worried about you!” He wasn’t satisfied. And did he stay off the ladder? NO! But he was more careful. After we picked for about 3 hours and filled two truck beds with oranges we left. When we got home Darrell picked up his pant leg and showed everyone his orange sized swelling on his leg from hitting the ladder as he jumped off the tree. Luckily thats all he got.