Life in Washington - Spring 2006

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Spring 2006:  Spring has arrived here in Central Washington, and we have been busy, busy, busy!  Our orchard guys have returned to the ranch and are pruning and tending the orchard as the trees awaken for another season.  We have been enjoying our new homes and becoming accustomed to country living.  We also have been actively working on putting our own stamp on the ranch.  We've redesigned our boxes and labels.
 
 
Becca had a great time working with a local printing company in the development of Sunnyslope's new box label.  The photo of the trees and mountain (Mt. Adams) are two photos that Becca snapped from on the property.  The printing company blended the two photos into one for the label.  The fruit graphic contains representations of the 5 types of fruit that we grow - apricots, peaches, cherries, nectarines and plums.

We are all very excited about the new label, new look for our business.  We are also expecting the new labels will provide additional efficiencies during the packing of our fruit.  The old labels were fruit specific and required us to make boxes as we packed.  With the new labels we can make boxes in advance and not stop the packing process when we switch from one type of fruit to another.  Believe it or not, every little change can add up to big time savings over the 10 week harvest.

 
Here's the label that was used by the previous owners and ourselves for the 2005 harvest.
 
Connie & Becca hosted a hat decorating party at our local church.  Becca found straw hats for a song on ebay.  Silk flowers, ribbons and other adornments were found at a local craft store.  It was a fun morning of decorating and visiting with the ladies.  Connie & Becca are enjoying meeting and visiting with the ladies as many of them are long term residents of the area and are very knowledgeable about the history of the valley.  One of the ladies is the wife of a local farmer whose family were original settlers in this area. 
 

In early June we hosted our first party here at the ranch... Sunnyslope Ranch Pre-Harvest Party.  We invited our customers, neighbors, church friends and some of our vendors out to the ranch to enjoy an afternoon of food, wine and conversation.  It was a beautiful day and about 35 or so people came to the party.