Bowman Orchards: predictably nuts over cherries

YELLOW BAY - For Jerry and Marilyn Bowman, cherry harvest season lasts all summer long.

After the devastating 1989 arctic storm that destroyed not only that year's cherry crop but many local orchards as well, the Bowmans came very close to throwing in the towel.

"We almost quit," Jerry said during an interview in his Yellow Bay cherry-sorting building last Friday afternoon. "We almost said this is it. But one thing that kept us in it was, people wanted to see the industry survive. Hearing that helped us hang in."

The 1989 freeze did so much damage, his trees didn't bear fruit for two or three years.

It was at that point that he and Marilyn began to diversify by leasing a cherry orchard in Moses Lake, Wash.

During cherry season 1989, they used fruit from Washington to keep their many regular Montana customers happy, Jerry explained.

These days the Bowmans have several Washington orchards - in Kennewick, Pasco, and Moses Lake. "It's a bigger operation over there," Jerry commented.

It looks like a bigger operation here, too, selling cherries both retail and wholesale.

"This is a good year, a nice crop," the orchardist said.

Marilyn remarked that one reason they haven't expanded their orchard business in Montana is that land is so expensive here.

The Bowmans are no longer with the Flathead Lake Cherry Growers Association. "We felt we wanted more control," she explained.

Bowman Orchard has been going since 1921, when Jerry's father started it. He grew up right here, working the cherries every summer.

Of all the jobs he's ever had, Jerry likes orchard work best because of the variety of chores, from driving a tractor to sorting cherries.

He taught school in Bigfork — junior high Math and Science - for about five years, he said. "I enjoyed the kids, but I like working outdoors more. I felt kind of cooped up."

The fruit

The sign on the edge of Highway 35 says "Lamberts, Rainiers, Raspberries…"

Jerry points out that the "Lapin" is a fairly new type of cherry that's come in since the 1989 freeze. "It doesn't crack as badly from rain," he explained. "It's dark like a Lambert but bigger and firmer than a Lambert."

He is a full-time orchardist in the winter, too, because he has to prune both here and over in the Washington orchards.

It's quite a bit of pruning, and he has a year-round orchardist's suntan to prove it.

Surprisingly, the Bowmans' Washington orchards have worse frost scares than their Flathead Lake orchard.

"Here it's on a slope, and the air is moving," he said. "When winter air is still it tends to be colder. We have frost alarms in the spring in Washington, before and during bloom, that warn us of frosts and kick on propane-fired wind machines."

The wind machines have propellers that move the air and prevent frost.

"The neat thing about here," Jerry remarked, "is Mother Nature's got a built-in wind machine."

He added that "once that bud starts to swell, it gets to where it can't stand as much cold."

Bowman cherries are shipped via independent truckers to eastern Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Canada, and Wyoming.

The Bowmans even have a semi-truck of their own.

"I'm the only one who drives this truck," he is quick to point out.

"We got the semi to bring the Washington fruit over here to sell," Jerry said. "Also we needed to haul more ladders, boxes, and two forklifts."

As a matter of fact, he had just driven the semi home from Moses Lake the same day of our interview.

A family business

Bowman Orchards are a family affair.

Thirteen-year-old granddaughter Donna Van Derbeer enjoys helping out at the orchard. She works in the store and does various other jobs.

She began coming to the orchards as a baby, strapped to her mother's back.

"I just help out wherever I can," she said. "It's hard work sometimes but I like it."

And, she added with a wide smile, "I get all the free cherries I can eat."

Donna likes the work experience she's getting as well as being surrounded by family.

She commented that she has made friends with the orchards' regular migrant worker families and is sometimes taught little bits of Spanish during outings to Flathead Lake.

Jerry's older brother Harold owns the smaller orchard just down the hill, on the other side of the highway.

Summer is a hectic season for the Bowman family, with very long days and even shorter nights.

According to Marilyn, who was raised on a cattle ranch near Augusta, she and Jerry get up at 4 or 5 a.m. during the summer months. Then they work into the evening sorting the fruit.

They don't finish until between 9 and 11:30 p.m.

When asked if they can take time for an afternoon siesta, they just laughed.

The Migrant Workers

At Bowman Orchards, the pickers start early and when they're done picking they are busy sorting.

Some of their pickers work the entire season, in all four of the orchards, Marilyn said. Others are hired here on the east shore, just for the Montana harvest.

"We have a lot of regular pickers, but it fluctuates," she said. "We start about June 10 and go almost to Labor Day. It gives the workers a nice long season. It's important to us to give the people a longer season. They come back."

One such worker is Estephania Soto, who has worked at Bowman Orchards for the last nine years.

She believes her employers are fair and good to everyone. From Pasco, Wash., she picks and sorts cherries.

Estephania's family is originally from Michoacan, Mexico.

In Washington, she also picks apples and asparagus, in addition to cherries.

Estephania has noticed that her blood pressure gets better when she comes to Montana. She attributes that to getting more exercise - not only from the hard work but perhaps the fact that the orchard where she works is on a hill.

Three years ago she injured her right knee when she fell on a rock while picking cherries at the Yellow Bay orchard.

Then last year she re-injured that same knee when she fell off of a ladder.

She is planning to undergo surgery this winter to "fix" her knee, she said.

Meanwhile, Estephania doesn't get in Flathead Lake much because the climbing up and down to and from the lake causes her too much knee pain.

Although her experiences have been good, a Mexican woman she once met from St. Regis warned her that people in Polson don't like Mexicans or Asians.

She has even heard that Polson has an active Ku Klux Klan.

When reassured that as far as the Leader knows, that's not true, the cherry worker agreed that when she's visited Polson she's felt welcome.

But most of the time she keeps her distance.

Estephania travels every summer to Montana with her husband and their youngest daughter Sara, 11. Her sister and her four nephews also make the annual trip.

She indicated that if her husband could find permanent work in the Flathead Lake area, her family would consider moving here permanently, since summer picking trips to Montana are kind of like a "vacation" for her family.

She loves the woodsy scenery and the snow, she said.

Estaphania and about a dozen other migrant workers have found a Christian church just outside Kalispell where the preacher delivers a homily in Spanish. She and the others go together every Sunday afternoon to the church service.

The Future

"I enjoy doing this," Jerry said, indicating the huge piles of cherry packing boxes, the sorting belt and trees heavy with fruit. "I've been trying to use the culls. We offer canned cherries, and jellies, and jams."

He and Marilyn plan to make more products with the culled cherries. They hope to eventually make cherry wine and sell dried cherries.

"We're still in the process, but someday we hope to get that going," Jerry said.

But, he added, fresh cherries will always be the main thing for sale.

For him, watching the cherries grow, and watching the bees working the blossoms, is a favorite thing. "Watching the fruit is rewarding. Also it's great watching people getting their cherries."

He enjoys the fact that many satisfied customers enjoy Bowman-grown cherries.

"Our whole thing is to get cherries to people that are ripe and good quality," he said. "We like to focus on the flavor. It's not the easiest thing to do, but we want the consumer to get something that's really good to eat."