The harvest has begun

We live in raspberry country. Our northern part of the county is home to acres and acres of raspberries. We have fabulous sandy loam soil that is just perfect for raspberry growing. Combined with our weather we produce more raspberries than anywhere else in the US. Washington state is the top producer of raspberries and our county produces 85-90% of those berries. This means we produce approximately 75% of the raspberries in the US.

The harvesting is just starting. It gets kind of crazy on our roads with the raspberry trucks ferrying flats of berries back to farms and processing plants. At this time of year, I can stand in my front yard and when a raspberry truck passes by.... well let me tell you that the smell of raspberries follows. It's wonderful.

The raspberry pickers sometime even keep running in the dark... if you've never seen a raspberry picker... well they look like some sort of space vehicle.

My son is working for his 3rd summer for a local farm, one of the bigger ones in our county. He works hard and the days are long. They work 7 days a week if necessary.... and for a few weeks every July it's necessary.

Hope you get to enjoy some fresh raspberries... they may have come from my little corner of the world. I know you all will appreciate all of the hard work it takes to get them to your kitchen.