Post by nutsberryfarm 🏜 on Nov 13, 2020 2:19:25 GMT
www.oldmission.net/2020/11/johnson-farms-apples/
While most of us have been fretting about the election (or just avoiding it altogether), Old Mission Peninsula farmers have been laser-focused on getting their apples off the trees and shipped off to the processors.
That’s true of my family’s farm, Johnson Farms, run by my brothers, Dean Johnson and Ward Johnson, and my niece, Dean’s daughter Heatherlyn Johnson.
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After the apples are picked, they’re hauled to the farm’s cooling pad – on Center Road about a half-mile north of Mapleton – where they’re loaded onto big semitrucks headed to Peterson Farms. They are a family-owned farm in Shelby, Michigan, and they’ve been taking Johnson Farms cherries and apples for several years.
I happened to swing into the cooling pad yesterday on my way to the Lighthouse open house (photos forthcoming), and both brothers were loading up the last truck of the season. After a long and rainy apple season, they were happy to see that last truck head off to Peterson Farms.
I’m often driving past the cooling pad around 7 or 8 p.m., heading home after hiking a few miles on the north end trails. Most nights, I’ll see my brothers out there loading and unloading boxes of apples after the sun has gone down, sometimes in the rain and dark – especially after we set the clocks back last week and it gets dark early.
Here’s a photo I took of Ward unloading a truck last week. I’m standing next to their farm stand (you can still get apples there!).