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“There are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

A golden bosc pear weighing in at nearly 1.2lbs, Monday Aug. 24, 2015 at Scully Packing Co. in Finley. (Kent Porter / Press Democrat) 2015

A golden bosc pear weighing in at nearly 1.2lbs, Monday Aug. 24, 2015 at Scully Packing Co. in Finley. (Kent Porter / Press Democrat) 2015

Yes, this is a big pear. A golden bosc pear weighing in at over a pound.  The folks at Scully Packing Co. near Kelseyville showed me around the other day as their harvest ground on.  I worked nearly four seasons while in high school and college at what was then the Scotts Valley Fruit Exchange near Lakeport.  I was surprised  much had not changed in the physical side of things of a packing operation.  Packers packed, fast as ever, but with cardboard boxes not wood.  Forklift drivers still unloaded trucks from the fields and sorters still sorted.  The sounds were as I remembered.

At Scotts Valley, there was a packer named Doris. To a 16 year-old (me), she seemed to be about 86, maybe 90.  I’m sure she wasn’t, but she could pack a box of pears in under 45 seconds.  No joke.  She made a ton of money and probably took vacations to the Bahamas on her summer earnings. Doris was a star at the shed.

Pears are packed by hand, Monday Aug. 24, 2015 at Scully Packing Co. in Finley near Kelseyille in Lake County.  (Kent Porter / Press Democrat) 2015

Pears are packed by hand, Monday Aug. 24, 2015 at Scully Packing Co. in Finley near Kelseyille in Lake County. (Kent Porter / Press Democrat) 2015

Maria de Jesus Macias of Kelseyville packs golden bosc pears Monday Aug. 24, 2015 at Scully Packing Co. in Finley near Kelseyville in Lake County. (Kent Porter / Press Democrat) 2015

Maria de Jesus Macias of Kelseyville packs golden bosc pears Monday Aug. 24, 2015 at Scully Packing Co. in Finley near Kelseyville in Lake County. (Kent Porter / Press Democrat) 2015

Pear puns I’ve heard in the newsroom and the public:

-That’s quite a pear you have, Kent .

-That’s a really small hand.

-What’s in the other hand?

-It’s pearfect

-That’s a really big pear.

-It looks like Mr.Potato Head!

-Do you have a matching pear?

-What was on the other side of the tree?

-Here a pear, there a pear, everywhere a pear pear.

The running joke at Scotts Valley in 1978 was “Why is a pear green?”

“Because it’s not ripe!”

 

Ayyyye

 

I can honestly tell you it’s the largest pear I’ve ever seen.  The Guinness Book of World Records has an atago pear in Japan at record at 6 lb 8 oz.

-Kent Porter

 

 

 

 

 

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