You may not realise it, but flying the Sepia Saturday is no easy task. There are dials to watch, levers to pull, switches to switch, and the co-pilot, Alan Burnett, to keep sober. You could be excused if you thought this was a picture of either Alan's or Marilyn's office desk; but in fact it is a photograph of the cockpit of a 1948 B-36 plane which appears on the Flickr Commons stream of the American Aviation Historical Society.
"Dials" yielded one of our avocados on a scale, which made me laugh because the scale we use is so uncomplicated. When we pick the grove, we often "size pick" which means only the avocados over a certain weight are picked; the rest of them dangle until they achieve a market-ready size. The picking process all depends on weather and market price. Like all agriculture, it's a bit of a crapshoot. Should we keep the fruit on the trees to allow them to grow larger and yield a better price? If so, we risk losing fruit, as it gets heavier, to wind or a heat drop. My husband agonizes over the variables for every crop. When the picking crew size-picks, he prowls around the grove as they go, checking to make sure the fruit is the weight range he specifies. Because this fruit on the scale was a whopper he took its photo.
And I sepia-toned it just for today.
Here's another photo Google found—the cockpit dials on a small plane we flew in over the "skeleton" coast in Namibia.
And more dials—my husband fiddling with his various copy watches which look good, but never seem to "keep on ticking" like the old reliable Timex.
Like everyone today, I have thousands of photos in the cloud (mostly travel related) and we rarely sit down and look through them. A Google search is terrific fun when it pulls up photos from all over the place and then you start pulling up more and more.......
Find an uncomplicated route over to Sepia Saturday to read more stories.
Great selection of photos. Avocados have grown so pricey that it seems logical to weigh them like gold! And I'm totally with you on Timex...no watch is as durable or long-lasting.
ReplyDeleteTimex is the best! But with few other product does brand seem to mean so much.
DeleteI agree, google+ is a great way to find photos on a particular topic, even if it does throw up a few oddities at times. I envy you your avocadoes, but does farming them means you no longer enjoy eating them straight or using them for guacamole or in other recipes any more?
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you. More and more I find that the wonderful thing about Sepia Saturday is that it sends me on a voyage of discovery amongst my own images and I discover all sorts of things, places, times and people I had forgotten about.
ReplyDeleteI try to restrict myself to searching until I'm in bed with my iPad. Usually the experience triggers pleasant dreams.
DeleteWhat a great idea. Do you ever tire of avocados I wonder? By coincidence I bought an avocado today and with luck it will be just right for tomorrow’s lunch. I love them but they’re a bit hit and miss here in Lanzarote.
ReplyDeleteWe never tire of them and usually eat them simply—in salads, for avocado toast or in guacamole. Less is more, we've decided.
DeleteDials to weigh avocados...mmm, that is huge. I eat them when I can get them to ripen and not spoil. They are sold here very unripe, or overripe, never just right. I still have an old watch sitting in my jewelry box that was self-winding...but I don't think it runs any more.
ReplyDeleteYou've probably mentioned, before, having an avocado grove, but I must not have been paying attention? Your blog title now makes more sense to me! :) I love avocados! (who doesn't?) One summer my husband, who was in the US Forest Serv. at the time, was down in the LA area helping with a wild fire. He said fire engines had to go through avocado groves to get to the fire and in doing so, knocked a lot of avocados off the trees. He said there was 900 lbs of guacamole in the backs of those trucks. Mmmm!
ReplyDeleteFire fighters are our heroes around here!
DeleteA fun post to mix up mechanics and agriculture! I know from my work as a musician and woodworker that I've gotten pretty good at recognizing pitch by ear and measuring length by eye. Do avocado pickers learn to accurately judge the weight of single fruits or baskets?
ReplyDelete