Cherries from Young

[Happy Dude]

I hope the cherry season (Nov to Dec) won’t be impacted this year

impacted by....? Labour shortage, storms, covid, needles, China?

 

[AIRwin]

impacted by....? Labour shortage, storms, covid, needles, China?

Or pilferage by JQ?

 

[Quickstatus]

Labour shortage

Yep

 

[ethernet]

Young and surrounds have been blessed with good soaking rainfalls, the trees are in blossom, and Canola prices high, as is beef and lamb. I think it is shaping up for a very good harvest. Plus, I know you have to ask to get the export large size cherries.

 

[OATEK]

This reminds me of my own involvement in bringing cherries from Young on a plane. A group of us (pollies and public servants) were at an official function at Grenfell, and towards the end of proceedings one of our number volunteered to collect cherries from Young and have them at our planes (2xtwin turbos) at Young airport when we got there. So various of us put in our cash and off he went, and sure enough when we got to the airport they had been stowed. There were two aircraft, and I was on the second, and after special pleading got to sit in the RH seat for the flight.

The first plane, piloted by a junior QF pilot (and connected to a big wig in QF), just took off straight down the runway with a slight tail wind and disappeared into the blue. Our pilot preferred to taxi right to the other end and take off into the wind, so were quite a bit behind the first plane.

We took off and got to about 500ft or so when the RH front baggage compartment, in the nose, sprang open right in front of me. The pilot immediately turned left and throttled back, to stop not only the cherries but other luggage from coming out of the compartment and into the windscreen or RH prop.

We flew a slow left hand turn to bring us back to the runway, with the stall warning going off and the pilot making small changes in throttle to keep us up without ripping the luggage door off. After what seemed like 5 minutes but was probably less than 2, we found the airsrtip and he put us down very gently.

As soon as we came to a stop the pilot instructed everyone to stay in the seats, with their belts on. He then climbed over me to get out and lock the luggage compartment. He climbed back in and soon had us off again. We landed at SYD safely some time later, with the cherry buyer having apologised about100 times for his carelessness, and the pilot telling him to be quiet as he didn't want to broadcast that he hadn't detected the error on his walk around.

The cherries were fabulous, and the whole experience one that either puts you off flying (one of number said never again in a small charter plane) or builds confidence in the ability of good pilots to cope in an emergency (as it did for me). I heard later that the pilot eventually also got to fly for QF.

 

[Forg]

^ Near-death cherries are best cherries!

 

[Happy Dude]

Yep

That's also being used by the pork industry to prime us for paying more for Xmas hams this year. I have a relative that works in an abattoir in QLD and the labor relations are unbelievable. Employees often simply don't bother to turn up for their shift. They don't/can't get fired because there's no-one else to do the work. Time to cut the benefits for those that won't work.

 

[Quickstatus]

export large size cherries

Can usually get them at the farm store
November should see NSW in excess of 90% of +16yrs with 2jabs and likely.

Hopefully they can get enough staff in by November (usually from OS)