Fruits at EagleRidgeStore

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The Christmas order deadline is December 17th for Standard Shipping and Dec 19th for Express Shipping.

Gotfruit.com offers the finest fruit and gourmet gifts.

"Gotfruit.com is the newest branch of an old family tree. The Thomas family has been growing pears in Northern California since 1919. Our commitment to the highest standards has not changed since our first orchard. Our fruit is hand-picked, hand-sorted and hand-packed. We pack to order each and every gift on the day of shipment - there is no pre-packing - unlike other fruit gift sellers. We have the best standard shipping in the industry. Gifts are only in transit from 1 - 3 days - fresh arrival is important to fresh fruit, and to us."

Wall Street Journal declares..."November 30th, 2001 GotFruit.com was rated the Best Overall and the Best Value out of all the Fruit-of-the-Month Clubs by the Wall Street Journal. "Gotfruit.com's produce was the most consistent and freshest (and most reasonably priced)." To View the article click here."

About picking apples: Our Vice-President went to high school in apple country in eastern Washington State, next to the Columbia River, in the shadow of the Cascade Mountains.  She fondly remembers school being shut down for the apple harvest every year.  The entire high school would be out picking.  (If you didn't pick apples--not that anyone ever shirked--you were considered somehow "unpatriotic.")

The young pickers were careful never to touch an apple with their fingertips, only very gently with the cupped palms of their hands, since even the slightest touch with a fingertip at picking time could mean a bruise at the market, disqualifying the apple from gourmet status.

The 14-foot ladders were a challenge on the uneven ground; a picker  was expected to stand even on the very top of the ladder as he or she stretched to reach the last few apples on the top of each tree. The huge bags the pickers used could hold 100 pounds of apples. Climbing up the ladder with an empty bag was no problem, but climbing down with a full bag was an adventure.

The picker would very carefully empty the full bag into a big wooden bin with a bottom and sides but no top.  Each bin held 25 boxes of apples. In the late 60's pickers were paid  up to $5 per bin picked, depending on the variety of apple.

Townspeople got to eat as many apples as they liked, since "windfalls" were free.  These were apples that had blown off the tree in the ever-present winds coming east across the Cascade Mountains.

After Apple Picking
by Robert Frost.

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree 
Toward heaven still. 
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill 
Beside it, and there may be two or three 
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough. 
But I am done with apple-picking now. 
Essence of winter sleep is on the night, 
The scent of apples; I am drowsing off. 
I cannot shake the shimmer from my sight 
I got from looking through a pane of glass 
I skimmed this morning from the water-trough, 
And held against the world of hoary grass. 
It melted, and I let it fall and break. 
But I was well 
Upon my way to sleep before it fell, 
And I could tell 
What form my dreaming was about to take. 
Magnified apples appear and reappear, 
Stem end and blossom end, 
And every fleck of russet showing clear. 
My instep arch not only keeps the ache, 
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round. 
And I keep hearing from the cellar-bin 
That rumbling sound 
Of load on load of apples coming in. 
For I have had too much 
Of apple-picking; I am overtired 
Of the great harvest I myself desired. 
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch, 
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall, 
For all 
That struck the earth, 
No matter if not bruised, or spiked with stubble, 
Went surely to the cider-apple heap 
As of no worth. 
One can see what will trouble 
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is. 
Were he not gone, 
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his 
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on, 
Or just some human sleep.