The August sun beams down on the dry valley, ripening the fruit-laden trees in an orchard. The green trees are a welcome sight in a dusty valley ringed by mountains that have grown parched and brown over the long summer.
Alonzo Durey, an orchardist in Tieton, Washington, waits for his crop to ripen. "Apples are a lot easier than the softer fruits, which can get wintertime injury," he says and then pauses. "But apples take a lot longer to grow."
While cherries are ready by mid-June and apricots and peaches follow soon after, apples aren't ready to harvest until they have grown for a full 120 days. "This is a tough business," says Durey. "You wait for your fruit to ripen and then one night of frost can wipe you out, just like that."
To avoid total disaster, Durey diversifies his crop. "I have some pears and plums and I'm going to be getting into cherries in a few years," he says.
Bad weather ruins profits. But unstable market conditions can also make life difficult for orchardists. "There are international pressures," explains Brady Vander Woude, an orchardist. "There are countries growing the same apples as us, but at a lower cost."
And orchardists need to be able to live with uncertainty. "You have to be willing to deal with stress," he adds.
Cheryl Siemens has seen neighbors who haven't been able to take the stress of running an orchard pull out their trees. Siemens says it's difficult to make a living, but that fact has just made her more creative.
Because Siemens lives in a coastal climate, blight and disease are a problem. "It's just so wet that it's hard to grow apples here," she says. "The first few years we shipped commercially but we've now gone into more farm-direct sales."
In addition to running their own fruit stand, the Siemens try to make their farm a destination for nearby city-dwellers. "We have U-pick apples, and in the fall we have a pumpkin patch and all kinds of things for people to do here."
Because the Siemens' orchard is located near a major urban center, they have targeted city dwellers who want to experience the countryside. For a $100 fee, people can purchase an apple tree for one season, which entitles them to come and pick fruit from it whenever they wish.
"It's quite fun. We have people coming out from the city and decorating and naming their trees," she says. "We have trees with names like the Apple Crisp Express."
Aside from branching out in their operations, the Siemens are also using a new growing technology called the dwarf orchard. The trees are kept small and grown on rows of trellises, similar in appearance to a grape vineyard.
"That part is really nice," says Siemens. "There is no need for ladders and it's so easy to do the spraying. It's very manageable but it's very high density."
Although the fruit is easier to reach, there is a lot more to be picked. "You have to do everything by hand and there are more and more apples."
Once the apples are picked, Siemens enjoys running the fruit stand. "We grow what we sell, and so it's nice to help out people who come into our shop," she says. "There is always fresh produce for us, too."
One of the less enjoyable aspects of working on an orchard can be dealing with sprays. "Because of the wetness here, we have to spray for fungus every week," says Vander Woude. "You have to wear respirators and be in a tractor with a cab that is airtight."
Even though the fungicides are non-toxic, Vander Woude doesn't like handling them. "It's not harmful, but nobody really knows the long-term effects of being exposed to it so often," he says. "It's not pleasant."
But when the sprayers are in the barn, wandering the rows of trees either in blossom or in full fruit is a wonderful experience. "You get to work outside a lot, you stay in good shape and get to breathe the fresh air," he says. "It's hard to beat that."