Where are Herman’s trees?
Photo of the Gearing Orchard in 1971.
By Rebecca Carlson
Sun contributor
Part one of our Leelanau Farming Family Series
As my 80-year-old dad and I make the trek slowly up the heavily-canopied, half-century old two-track, I wonder what his reaction will be as we make it to the cherry orchard entrance. With the sun shining in our faces, Dad stops dead in his tracks and takes his first look at the orchard in several years. “Where are all the trees? Where are all Herman’s trees?” Silent and shaking his head, my Dad continues to scan the empty orchard. “Dad, all our trees were removed last year,” I say. “There were only about 20 cherry trees left.” He responds, “But I don’t remember agreeing to that.” While his eyes well with tears, I realize this was yet another loss of family ties and precious memories from our years of farming.
My grandfather Cedric found the orchard land for sale in 1970 during one of his many Sunday driving excursions through the Leelanau Peninsula. I never understood why he chose this area until I visited his birthplace in South Africa. His very large family lived and worked in Cape Town and vacationed in the coastal town of Hermanus. In 2016, as I drove through the farming valley surrounding Hermanus with all the vineyards and orchards, I understood my grandfather’s connection with Leelanau. It was a slice of home. The terrain and weather are almost identical to South Africa. He loved the cherry orchard and what it represented: a place for gathering family, a place to work the land, a place for his grandchildren to grow, a place to sing along while he played his guitar at the bonfire, and a place to fight over the single bathroom among 15 or more family members.
The orchard is protected on all sides by a thick forest and receives full sun all day. The quiet of the orchard is calming as there are no noises from Jacobson and Omena roads, just farm noises from our neighbors, the Herman and Priest families. At the peak production of the cherry orchard, there were 600 Montmorency cherry trees that covered about 10 acres of the total 60-acre farm. There is the old Omena stagecoach road that separates our orchard from Donny Herman’s perfectly manicured one. The Herman family cherry trees included several varieties: Queen Anne, Black and Sour along with apple trees in their larger orchard. We were a weekend farming family while the Herman Orchard was a full-time family business.
During our years of peak cherry production, in the 1970s–1990s, the grandkids ranging in ages from five to 22 were required to help in all duties of the orchard: mowing grass, liming trees, pruning, brush clean-up, as well as picking and cleaning cherries during harvest. Neither size nor strength precluded any of us children from participating (moaning and whining was ignored).
Sour cherry harvest always occurred around my birthday during the beginning of August; I began to dislike my birthday for that very reason. The adults seemed to take special enjoyment in waking the slumbering offspring at dawn during the two to three days of harvest. The cherry shakers and truck with the tanks of water would be heading up the orchard road to begin the harvest. We dressed, ate, and whined for days. Heading out to the shed, each family member chose their weapon of choice among the old, wooden badminton and tennis rackets to clean the cherry tanks. Yes, you read that correctly. A smart person chose their racket carefully as you would be wielding it for hours in freezing cold water and you didn’t want a hand full of splinters. The rackets easily sifted through the cherries in the arctic temperatures of the water catching stems, leaves, and split cherries. My little brother and I were the youngest of the group and had to stand on wooden lug crates so we could see over the tank lip to do our part. The cleaner the cherry tanks, the higher our scores at Frigid Foods Processing Plant.
After days of cherry cleaning, my grandfather would help deliver the last load of cherry tanks to Frigid Foods. Upon receiving the check from the harvest, he took us out for a well-deserved family dinner to The Bluebird in Leland.
Farming is a communal activity, a vocation, and all farmers understand these key tenets. Farmers understand the land and succeed by helping neighbors to grow the farming community as a whole. In 1763, Hector de Crèvœcoeur wrote to his friend in England, “What should we American farmers be without the distinct possession of that soil? It feeds, it clothes us, from it we draw even a great exuberancy, our best meat, our richest drink, the very honey of our bees comes from this privileged spot … No wonder we should thus cherish its possession … This formerly rude soil has been converted … into a pleasant farm, and in return it has established all our rights; on it is founded our rank, our freedom, our power as citizens, our importance as inhabitants of such a district … [T]his is what may be called the true and the only philosophy of an American farmer” (Letters from An American Farmer, Letter 2).
But American farms and farmers are disappearing. According to Statista.com, from 2000-2020 the United States has experienced a loss of 50 million acres of farmland. As a result, of America’s 895 million acres of agricultural land, “over 40% … is owned by people over 65, [and] up to 370 million acres of farmland could change hands in the next 20 years, increasing the possibility that the land will be sold for development.” As more farmers reach retirement, and the younger generation does not wish to take over the family business, more farms and agricultural land will be lost. The long-term implications are devastating.
Through the years, the Three G Ranch would not have survived without the help and advice of our surrounding farming neighbors: Popp, Priest, Korson, Kolarik, and Gregory to name a few. Our family log books from the orchard years are stuffed with hand-written receipts for various services from these families; they are a time-capsule of information. While our half-century farm has slowly declined for various reasons, the Glen Arbor Sun’s Leelanau Farming Family Series will serve as a tribute, in a sense a love letter, to all those wonderful families who make up our community.
Some only know the family names by various road signs and businesses throughout the peninsula. Future articles will introduce readers to some of the Leelanau farming families who helped develop and continue to make huge contributions to the success of the area.
Our cherry orchard no longer exists, yet the land is still there. My extended family held a wedding on it last fall. While sitting around a bonfire that night, all the cousins shared stories. The one repeated story involved our memories of walking the orchard road after dark. The most magical time of the day in the orchard was nighttime. Although it was a little scary walking up the forest road, it was worth the trip as you emerged from the dark two-track road into the orchard. The only light came from the moon and stars. The orchard is the ideal spot for stargazing and playing games. Every night, the trees awaited our crew’s arrival to witness the night’s activities: a game of Bloody Murder or good old-fashioned tag. During those years, in addition to torn and stained clothing, we broke fingers, arms, ankles, and even bruised a few egos. I cannot think of a time I miss more.
