Kiwifruit Picking 2014.

The weather on Friday for our Kiwifruit picking was

clear and bright. Here forklift driver Josh unloads empty bins to put the fruit in.
 The load out area is busy all day with new supplies of empty bins coming in and full bins going out and off to the pack house.

Truckie and R have time to chat.( I was mainly at the table under the gazebo being the office lady and keeping tabs on everyone. )( sometimes I snuck off to take photos )

Here's a happy picker.  It is difficult to take good photos under the vines where the fruit is being picked. Dappled light being the problem.

 And another.

 Ken the picking Supervisor in the orange vest works with the pickers all day ensuring careful fruit handling; no stalks and bins not too full. The tractor drivers has hopped off while the tractor is stopped and as he is wearing gloves he picks  a few fruit straight into the bin. He moves the tractor with the 3 bins on the trailer along to keep pace with the pickers so they don't have far to walk with a full bag. There were 4 tractors and this would you believe is one of the tractors that got supplied!

 Not surprisingly it lasted till 10.15 then this.

 Phil trying to fix it.

 My tractor was got out of the shed and worked for the rest of the day( it happens nearly every year. )

 Here it is. Driver Royal drove it with care as I told him it was used to a lady driver.

 Here driver Reece is levelling out the top of the bin.

 Here is driver Mauricio ( from Chile ) doing the same thing, with picker Mana

 emptying his picking bag.

 Driver Sam takes his load back along the track to the loading area,

 See how the trailer tips so the bins can slide off the back.

 Small flaps hold the bins in the rest of the time.( here one bin is off 2 more to follow) - it usually takes a bit of a jerk to get them started.

 The Truckee helps by stapling on the bin cards ( with our picking number and the date and a consecutive number) while the fork lift unloads his truck.

 Here he is now waving to the photographer as he set off with his load of full bins to the pack house across town.

 Another load went on this curtain sider. 9 loads went out in all.   283 field bins full of our Kiwifruit. Surprisingly it was 5.5 bins more than last year so again I can say that is our record pick. I wonder how well it will pack out. We have been across to MPAC this afternoon to see our fruit being packed. It will take about 6 hours..... photos of that on the next post.