2020 Almond Harvest with A.J. Hyatt

A.J. Hyatt Jr. was my 7th and 8th grade teacher in Meridian, CA in 1968. He is a pilot and for many years was a flight instructor. I took my first flyng lesson from A.J. in 1968 in a Piper J3 Cub. I resumed my flight training with A.J. in 2018, 50 years later. I actually have flight logbook entries in my log book 50 years apart with A.J. as my flight instructor. That could be a record for the world's slowest learner!

Today, A.J. Hyatt owns a small almond orchard in Yuba City, CA. Each year for the past 3 years, I have been fortunate enough to be able to help my old friend with his almond harvest. Today, I decided to take some photos of the harvest and write a little about it.

The day began by servicing the equipment and getting it ready for the harvest. Here is A.J. with his John Deere 2020 forklift tractor. I operate this machine in the harvest operation.

A.J. with his Ford tractor and nut harvester machine.

The operation begins.

The orchard in about 5 acres and contains about 1000 Almond trees. A.J takes care of it with the help of friends and his lovely wife, Emily. That is money, right there!

Each box contains about 800 lbs of Almonds which will yield about 300 lbs. of nut meats. (that is the part you eat)

At the end of each row, A.J stops and picks up the almonds that the picker misses and shovels them into the machine. where the dirt, sticks and debis is removed before going into the box.

Once the nuts are in the box, I move them up to the front of the yard where they will be placed on a trailer and taken to the huller for processing.

Here A.J marks each box with the date and the variety of almond in the box. This box is marked as Peer, short for Peerless, the variety we are harvesting today.

A nice shot of A.J. as he moves through the orchard harvesting the almonds.

Even young guys, like us, need to take a break sometimes. Here is A.J. enjoying a mid morning cup of coffee in the orchard.

This was a surprise. This flock of wild turkeys raced through the orchard and ran off toward the neighborhood next door. The last one in the flock appears to be white.

The was my favorite picture of the day. A.J. is turned around watching the machine as the dust and debris are blown away from the nuts.