Cherry Picking in Montana

There is always a first time for everything and Wednesday, July 27th was just that for the four of us.  We drove over to the east side of Flathead Lake and found a "U-Pick" cherry orchard.  We drove up to the orchard and was greeted by John Repnak, the owner.  Gerry rolls down his window and tells him we are from Louisiana and wanted to pick a couple of cherries.  You can imagine the look on Mr. Repnak's face when Gerry ask to pick a couple of cherries. He informs Gerry there is a 5 pound minimum purchase to go into his orchard.  Well it didn't matter to us we wanted to pick some cherries.  He tells us to pick out any tree in the orchard but only pick from that one tree. I guess this is where the phrase "cherry-picking" came from.  Pick out the best and stay with it.  These trees were loaded with cherries.  He had 190 trees in his orchard and told us each tree produces approximately 200 pounds of cherries.  Do the math that is 38,000 pounds of cherries.  Yep, and four Cajuns drive up and ask to pick a couple of cherries.

Driving around the east side of the lake there were so many cherry orchards.  It would be interesting to know just how many acres of cherry orchards we saw. On average 3-5 million pounds of cherries are produced in the Flathead area.  Cherry trees were not the only thing of interest that caught our eye, there were deer everywhere. 

Next on the agenda for the day was to spend some time back at the campground and teach Gerry and Cheryl how to play Mexican Train.  Oh and we can't forget the trivia questions to Cheryl on who the artist was while playing music from our Swamp Pop collection.  We laughed so hard at her answers our sides hurt.

Thursday the 28th was another day spent close to the campground since Cheryl and Gerry would be flying out early Friday morning.  On our way into Polson we stopped by the Mission Mountain Winery looking for cherry wine.  They did not make a cherry wine but they did have an excellent huckleberry wine.

It was time to take them back to Kalispell and say our good-byes.  We had a great time and are looking forward to another chance to do it again.



Cherry Pickers

 

This little sign brought us an afternoon of fun.

Looks like they are on an Easter egg hunt with the buckets.

Gerry picking a few cherries.

They say opposites attract.  Gerry pointing one way and Cheryl the total opposite way.

Just couldn't wait I had to taste one.

Team work.

These trees were loaded with cherries.

Cheryl getting the tri-pod ladder moved around the tree.

Cheryl loved every minute in the orchard.

We did get a little carried away with our harvest.



We did pick more than a couple.

This was not her first time for pictures.

No shortage of deer around here.
 

Cool truck in Polson.

This guy was always parked in the same place.

This car was in the town of Lakeside.  They moved it around town so you never knew where he was going to be.

She looked like a natural in this motorhome. 

Playing Mexican Train

The rain didn't stop the game we just moved the table.

This was wanting to enjoy a fire really bad. 

We were at Rollins RV Park boat slips on Flathead Lake.

He only took a few steps before he had to pull up his shorts.

Brrrr!

Can you tell Terry was tired of  having his picture taken.

Big G playing a tune.

Happy Hour

This bear was made out of steel cables. 

Saying good-bye.  We had a great time!