Tag Archives: cherries

Cherry Orchard Tour by Helicopter

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Another video from the FlyingMAir YouTube channel.

Hop on board with me for a quick tour of the cherry orchards I was responsible for drying this past season. This video continues where I left off with my tour of the Colockum Fire damage (https://youtu.be/HT4jT_CG0yU), on what might be my last scenic flight of the season. I start at Jumpoff Ridge and continue over Stemilt Hill, Wenatchee Heights, and Squilchuck Canyon. Then I take a detour past the east side of Saddle Rock before descending down over downtown Wenatchee. Finally, I head up Stemilt Creek past a few more orchards and from there into Malaga for landing.

I had two cameras rigged up for this video and I switch from cockpit cam to nose cam for most of this flight. Audio is from direct connection to the intercom so you can hear me narrate the flight and make radio calls. You can also hear helicopter engine/rotor sound and rushing wind from the nosecam camera enroute.

First Cherry Drying Flight of 2020

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A long video from the FlyingMAir YouTube channel.

Hope into the cockpit with me for my first cherry drying flight of the 2020 season!

Some of you folks said you wanted to see a long video so I’m delivering this one. 53 minutes of me flying from orchard to orchard and flying low and slow over cherry trees, talking about what I’m doing along the way. You’ll learn how cherry drying works, why I fly higher over rainier cherries, what the Deadman’s Curve is, why I fly sideways sometimes, how I can dry more efficiently, and why/how you should help small businesses in your community. And more stuff that I can’t remember. Hell, even I could only watch the whole thing once.

I feel as if I should hand out a trophy to folks that make it to the end of this one, but YOU ASKED FOR IT and you got it. Enjoy!

One more thing: Yes, I do take a phone call on this flight and have some trouble getting audio to work properly. Please note that I climbed away from the trees and circled far from any obstacles or other traffic until I resolved the problem and identified the orchard blocks I needed to dry. So please don’t lecture me about distracted flying. I know the pitfalls of distracted flying better than anyone you know — trust me on this — and you really can’t know what was going on unless you were in the cockpit with me. You weren’t.

Cherry Drying Season Begins. Again.

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Can you believe this is my thirteenth season?

Cherry drying season began yesterday for me. It was the earliest start I’ve ever had. At this point, I expect to be on contract until the beginning of August.

Cherry Drying
Here’s a shot of me over the cherry trees a few years ago in my first R44.

I started doing this in 2008, the same summer I turned down a job offer to be a tour pilot in Alaska. That job would have had me landing on glaciers, touring fjords, and sling-loading food to dog sled camps. But it also had very long work days, only mediocre pay, and a long season away from home. I was married at the time — hey, everyone makes mistakes — and my wasband didn’t want me to be away from home so long. So when a chance to spend just about a month flying in Washington state came along, I took that instead. Any opportunity to get out of Arizona’s oppressive summer heat.

Want to learn more about cherry drying, including why we do it? Start with this very old blog post: “Drying Cherries with the Big Fan.” Then read more by following the cherry drying tag.

At the time, although I hoped it would become an annual gig, I never in my wildest dreams expected it to become my primary source of income. Back in 2008, I was still writing computer books for a living, just starting a slide down from a career high in 2004/05. I’d had a helicopter since 2001 but couldn’t make money flying it. The first R44 came in 2005, but it wasn’t until 2007 when I got some lucrative wildlife survey work that the business started turning a profit. Cherry drying carried on that trend. By 2013, when I shed my wasband and moved to Washington full time, I was making more as a pilot than as a writer. (Let’s face it: no one is buying computer books these days.)

Business boomed over the years. For a while, I kept building my client base — and the team of pilots who worked with me to serve them. Things leveled off a year or two ago and I generally have the same clients and contracts every year. My team now consists of 5 pilots (including me), most of which come on about 2 weeks after my season has started and leave 2 to 3 weeks before my season ends.

Mr Bleu
My R44 Raven II helicopter, “Mr Bleu,” parked out at his summer cherry drying base. I put on his blade cozies to protect the blades from forecasted hail in thunderstorms this weekend. Beyond him is a Hiller belonging to another pilot who isn’t working with me; all my guys fly R44s.

My formula is simple: work as a team to serve all the clients equally. Keep all pilots flying as much as possible, no matter which client calls. If only one big orchard needs drying, put multiple pilots on it to get it done fast. Don’t contract for more acreage than we can cover within a reasonable time. Oh, and make sure all of the orchards are in a tight little area so pilots don’t waste time deadheading from one orchard to another.

With few exceptions, my team is different every year. While I’d love to work with the same group of guys every year — 2016’s team really stands out for how well we worked together on the rainiest year I’ve ever seen here — few guys seem interested in doing this every year. They don’t see it the way I did: as a paid vacation with some time off for paying work in a place with lots of recreational opportunities. (Hell, I bought a boat here — before I moved here — so I could get out on the river during my cherry season.) The ones who do see that — Gary comes to mind — come again and again. Most others drift away, so I wind up building new teams every year.

Things will get busy for me in mid-June, when my guys start showing up. I’ll show them the orchards — probably from the air — give them Google Maps references with orchard locations, and probably fly with them so they know what they need to do. Then I’ll leave them alone until rain looks likely. When the calls start coming, I’ll start dispatching — by phone and on the radio. We’ll all keep flying until the work gets done or it gets dark, whichever comes first.

Of course, I’ll have my GoPros hooked up for most of my flights, collecting new footage for my YouTube channel. Folks really seem to love cherry drying videos — which is something I can’t quite understand. There’s really nothing exciting about the work.


This video from 2016 is my most popular cherry drying video so far, with over 735K views. As I write this, it’s averaging 2,000 views a day.

While the season is on, I’ll find an orchard where I can get permission for us to pick our own cherries. Last year, it was a block full of Rainiers that didn’t get picked because they just didn’t get red enough. (Can you imagine?) On really nice days with no chance of rain, I’ll lend my kayaks or maybe my bicycle out to the pilots. Or maybe I’ll take one or two of them out on my boat. Because we’re all on call during daylight hours 7 days a week and the days are so long, there’s no opportunity to party. We always have to be ready to fly at first light.

Did I mention that none of us can leave the area during the entire time we’re under contract? It’s almost like being under house arrest for me. For them — well, if they play it right, it’s that paid vacation I mentioned above.

Near the end of the season, I’ll have one of my end-of-season BBQs. I’ll smoke up a few racks of ribs and roast a chicken or two. I’ll invite my guys and maybe a few other pilots I’ve met during the season. Then, as the cherries are picked out and the contracts end, the guys will leave, one by one. By the end of July, I’ll be the only one left to cover the few orchard blocks that are yet to be picked. When they’re done, I’m done.

And that’s it for me for the year.

Well, not really. I still do charter flights and tours. And the occasional photo flight. And yes, I still go flying just for fun.

But once my last contract has ended, I usually spend some time trying to get my life back to normal, taking trips out of town and trying hard not to check the weather every half hour. I usually go on vacation, too. In 2017, I finished just in time to go to Oregon to watch the total eclipse of the sun. Other years, I’ve taken my camper into the North Cascades, Canada, and the Olympic Peninsula. Last year, I took a photo cruise among the San Juan Islands. This year, I’m going to Alaska for 10 days. (If I play my cards right, I might go out and land on a glacier with the folks I almost went to work for all those years ago.)

And that’s my cherry drying season routine. Did I know back in 2008 that it would become such a vital part of my financial well-being? Hell no.

But in all honesty, I never expect anything to work out the way it actually does. I’ve just learned to go with it. And I’ve got no complaints about this.

Mango (or Cherry) Salsa

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A nice Whole-30 compliant accompaniment for grilled meats or fish.

As I blogged the other day, I started the Whole30 Challenge on Monday. Part of the challenge — in my mind anyway — is preparing interesting foods that distract you from the fact that you’re missing out on favorites like dairy and whole grains.

A friend came over the other night with a nice piece of salmon. I fired up the Traeger, placed the seasoned salmon on a cedar plank, and cooked it outside while we chatted. I’d already prepared some mango salsa to go with it, following a recipe I’d found on the Traeger website. But that recipe called for honey or agave sweetener, which is verboten on Whole30. So I simply omitted it.

Here’s the recipe as I made it:

  • 1 cup mango, diced. I keep frozen mango in my freezer for smoothies and that’s what I used. It’s quick and easy to incorporate into recipes, including my mango chutney.
  • 1/4 onion, finely chopped. The original recipe called for a red onion and I didn’t have one.
  • 1 small jalapeño pepper, minced. The original recipe called for habanero pepper, which I believe is hotter, but I used what I had on hand.
  • Juice of 2 limes. In hindsight, I think I could have done it with just one lime.
  • 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped.

Combine all ingredients. Cover and store in refrigerator until ready to use.

This was excellent on the salmon. It was also good with my egg and onion scramble this morning for breakfast.

Cherry Salsa
Cherry salsa made with fresh-picked rainier cherries. What could be better with a summer meal?

On Wednesday, I went cherry picking with a friend and brought home about 10 pounds (or more?) of Rainier cherries. The owner of the orchard where I pick often makes cherry salsa. I realized that her recipe was likely very much like the one above, but with cherries instead of mangos. So I made a batch. I’ll eat it with some grilled pork chops for dinner tonight. Yum.

Free Bees, Courtesy of Migratory Beekeepers

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Catch a swarm without even trying.

The cherry trees are blooming in the Wenatchee area and that means the bees are back.

Every year, thousands of beehives are shipped to the area and placed around orchards to pollinate the flowers. Apricots are first — although there aren’t many apricot orchards in the area. Then comes cherries and then apple and pears. The season has just started and it should go on for at least a month.

My friend Tina and her husband Bill have a cherry orchard in Malaga, not far from where I live. Although they usually keep one or two of their own bee hives, that’s not enough to pollinate their entire orchard. So they rented about 30 hives, which were delivered the other night, likely right from California. (Migratory beekeepers move bees at night when they’re all inside their hives.)

The other day, Tina excitedly texted me that the bees were swarming. Turns out that they’d found her empty bee hives — her bees had not survived the winter — and a swarm had moved into one of them.

If you’re wondering what all this means, you might want to read a post I wrote back in 2013, “Bees: Capturing My First Swarm.” It explains why bees swarm and what’s usually involved in capturing a swarm. But Tina didn’t have to do any of the work. The bees just moved into an empty hive on their own.

I told her she should put other empty hives out to see what else she could catch and she said she did. Then I asked if I could put one or two of mine out. After all, if more than one colony was swarming, it would be great to catch as many of them as we could. Great for the bees, since they’d get a new home easily. Great for us because we’d get free bees. And it didn’t affect the migratory beekeeper since the bees were going to swarm anyway. If we didn’t catch them in our beehives, they’d end up somewhere else.

Keep in mind that buying bees usually costs about $100 to $150 per colony, depending on how many you get and how you buy them. And where you buy them from, of course. Since it’s common to lose 50% of your colonies over the winter here, a lot of folks spend a lot of money buying new bees. I replaced 6 colonies one year and swore it would be the last year bought bees. Now I make new colonies through splits and try to catch a few swarms every summer.

So yesterday I cobbled together two complete hives with ten frames each. Each hive has a mix of frames from a failed colony — three of my eight colonies died or disappeared over the winter — and frames from extracted honey. There’s lots of room for a queen to lay eggs and lots of room for incoming bees to store honey and pollen. And even a little honey to get them all started.

It’s kind of like finding a roomy apartment, fully furnished with just the kind of furniture you like, and a fridge with food in it.

I put one hive near the one Tina had already caught and another right near where half the rented bees were set up. And then I left.

Today, I dropped off some spare equipment to help Tina set up a few more hives. Not complete setups, but hive boxes (also known as supers) and tops. She’ll still need bottoms and frames.

Free Swarm
In less than 24 hours, bees had moved into my empty bee hive.

This afternoon, Tina texted me: “Look what you got!” And she sent a photo of the hive I’d placed near hers with bees all over the front of it.

It looked as if a swarm was moving in.

I texted back, asking if I could pick it up on Friday morning so they’d have enough time to settle in. She agreed. Then I suggested that she put a box where I had that one when I moved it. Maybe she’d catch another one.

Robber Bees?
There aren’t enough bees around this hive box to assume a swarm has moved in. When I pick up the other one, I’ll take a peek inside this one.

She sent me a photo of my other hive, too. There was some activity around the front, but not much. Robber bees, perhaps, or maybe some bees just checking it out. Maybe she’ll send another photo tomorrow.

My beekeeping season has been off to a slow start. It only recently stayed in the 40s at night and we still have cool, rainy days. I checked the hives when I got home from my winter trip, just to see how many survivors I had and to seal up the dead hives so the other bees wouldn’t be tempted to rob. When I bring the new bees home, I’ll spend some time opening up my hives, shuffling frames, and seeing if I can spot the queens. I’ll do hive splits on my healthiest hives — I know that two are going like gangbusters — and put the splits on my little bee trailer. But rather than put four occupied hives on it before taking it up to Wenatchee Heights, I think I’ll try leaving one of them empty, just to see if I can attract any other migrants looking to settle down in the Wenatchee area.