Oooooooooooh! Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!

I got to ride on the Shockwave Shaker, and it was awesome. No hang on, it was AWESOME!
We drove over to Joe's to experience the cherry shaking and after a bit of explaining and me with a dropped jaw he offered me a ride up top. Woot!
Sure, I had to cling on for dear life.
Sure, I got scratched by trees, splattered by cherries, deafened by the noise and bruised from bumping, but ooooooooooooooh! It was fantastic.

The Beloved put together a video of what I managed to shoot (what with the clinging and the trees flapping in my face) so you can see a bit of the process: Cherries, cherries everywhere!

First, the trees are sprayed with a substance that makes the cherries loose. It's important no storms happen during that period (a few days) as heavy winds will make everything fall down and ruin the crop.
Then the Shockwave Shaker comes into action. Joe drives it up to the tree, it hugs the trunk tightly, wraps around the canvas skirt and then shakes it violently. The cherries fly everywhere but mostly down, get caught in the skirt and transported up the conveyor belt where at the top a gust of wind blows most of the leaves off. There's a tank on the left side of the Shaker with water in it where the cherries end up in. That tank gets changed out after every 6 or 7 trees if they are loaded.
The water is needed to keep the cherries from being smooshed, and they will keep in water until they are at the processing plant.

This is the view from the ground, the Shaker is mostly hidden behind the skirt.

After I was sufficiently shook up, we loaded up on freshly picked cold cherries. They are delicious. I've never been much of a cherry fan, but these tart ones are stuff-your-face-good :)

I was so in awe of everything that was happening that I didn't really pay much attention to exposure and composition of the photos so it won't draw many people in but I don't care much because it was FUN. It was so much fun I'm exhausted! :)


(I recommend large for flying cherries)