The cherry harvest began the day before yesterday. Bill Johnson is the boys’ boss in the summertime. He owns a good size cherry orchard right off Grace Road. Since last year the boys have been shaking cherries for Bill and they love it. They get to work with a bunch of people who are fun, while Bill treats them like sons and gives them considerable grief just because he can!
The other day, I found some cheap(er) shoes for them to get messed up in the orchard. Once they have shaken the cherries off the trees, the cherries get washed and of course the shoes get soaked. This way they have 2 pairs of bumming around shoes that they can alternate between and when the harvest is over, so are the shoes and in the trash they go.
So obviously these shoes were not bought at Snyder’s in Manistee but at Kmart of Manistee. After all, money doesn’t grow on our trees, we don’t have an orchard 
Bill Johnson with the cherry hat and Tom, his trusty right hand man.
But first, on the way there, I saw this interesting looking house. The proportions are all kattywhompus but it’s new and interesting.
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- A strange and disproportioned house. It looks empty and new
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- Boys shaking
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- The shaker
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- pretty!
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- hmmmmm
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- cherries
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- The company name. Everyone always calls Bill’s place “Bill’s place”. I never knew that the orchard has a proper name
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- I want to tell you that this is the little cabin in which Bill Johnson was born. Alas, it’s the gardening shed ;)
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- The old gas pump. I told Bill he needed to replace the door on it and he told me “It has worked for me for over 50 years and it will work another 50″
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- Isn’t that a beautiful barn?
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- Bill Johnson with the green hat and Tom, his trusty right hand man
It was cold this morning, it still is at 1PM. I had to go back and bring the boys sweatshirts.
The cherry harvest will be going on way beyond August 10th, according to Bill. Nice, that’s good money for Marc and Ty.
