It's not unusual for adult children to assist parents in a move to a senior living environment. What is a bit of an anomaly is assisting a parent in the down-sizing of a 40 acre avocado grove, two tool sheds and a home of almost 60 years. This was our task over approximately the past 4 months but crunch time was the past 2 weeks. Credit to my sister and brother who made more frequent visits since February to hire a realtor; enlist an incredible estate sale planner; identify a family-friendly, personal moving company plus notify local non-profits who would benefit from the accumulation of farm and home items. And this process could only progress when my dad was willing and invested in making the move himself. He has a rich history from his roots in North Carolina, enlisting in the Navy in 1960 where he was trained to fly fighter jets, choosing to take his talents to Delta Airlines where he flew for 30 years in addition to buying property in 1967 which would grow to become Braswell Groves. This avocado grove was his retirement plan (more work than flying) and he farmed it successfully to the current day. It was finally time to write a new chapter and return to his roots in North Carolina.
It's impossible to quantify this experience with a single post, but I wanted to share a few highlights as a record for myself (childhood memories are tough to recall) plus as a reminder to my own kids of our childhood history in South Florida. I made a few simple recordings on a whim of nostalgic urgency to preserve a bit of history. A few things I forgot to mention, red ants, wasps, and yellow jacket stings were common. Mosquitoes were often terrible. We found old containers of calamine lotion and campho phenique during our clean-out that, in addition to a meat-tenderizer paste, were the remedy to these bug bites. In addition, in the early days we were often fearful of my younger brother falling down a well-hole in the grove in the 1970's! Fortunately, we all survived! Pardon the video quality, I did the best I could in a rather stressful situation.
This chart shares the many varieties of avocados and the approximate date they are to be picked. The Florida growing season is typically between June and October although not unusual to have fruit hanging on the trees until December. Over the course of a growing season, you will pick the same tree at least 3 times as, like people, avocados mature at different rates. You can only pick the avocado when it is of a required size with its circumference measured by a circular paddle.
RSS Feed