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Strawberry field in Bald Knob. Picking strawberries used to be jobs for everyone in Searcy AR area.

By
Real Estate Agent with RE/MAX Advantage

Strawberry fields Bald Knob AR

Look at the size of this strawberry farm!

My understanding is that young people from White County Arkansas used to spend their summer months in strawberry fields such as this one picking the berries and making a little spending money.

Since I grew up in Georgia working in tobacco fields of this size, I can't testify that I worked in strawberry fields.  It seems to be agreed, however, that the crops of yesterday were the McDonald's of today.  Young people now find jobs in the fast food sectors instead of the fields like this one.  They work in air-conditioned comfort! 

If you'd like this card for your memory stack, it can be bought right now on ebay!

Show All Comments
Anonymous
Debbie Wantulok

What a comparison!  It is true...our oldest child started out working in fast food...although he did side jobs for a moving company and worked a remodeling of a K-Mart store while he was he was doing it...then the company asks if he has a brother that will work...and there went another one...David started working at age 14...the rest of them have never worked in fast food(although Stephen was a cook for a Nursing Home for a while in college)...I don't know if they were in comfort or not cause kitchens are hot...but I can tell you that the smell of BO and food at the end of the day was just as bad, maybe worse, as if they had worked out in the sun all day...PU...burned grease and smothered onions...yuck!  I guess that is why none of them really enjoy fast food today...but they are really GOOD cooks! They ALL LOVE strawberry's too!

I wonder how long it takes them to prepare fields and work them today...as oppossed to the days when everything was worked by hand...I also wonder with all the new varitities if how the yeilds compare...I know the UofA had some experimental fields up around Clarksville back when we lived in Russellville and we got to sample some...HUGE and SWEET...

Apr 17, 2013 04:30 AM
#1
Don Thompson
Donthomp Associates - Sunnyvale, CA

I can tell you that one of the big differences in strawberry growing today is irrigation.

I had a uncle who was very successful growing strawberries because he had an artesian well for irrigation.

His farm was near the Little Red River.

I'm in California at present and had to drop in to comment.

Apr 17, 2013 08:08 AM
Barbara S. Duncan
RE/MAX Advantage - Searcy, AR
GRI, e-PRO, Executive Broker, Searcy AR

Debbie, in Georgia those guys with a pickup truck would come pick up us kids at near daybreak.  We'd be hauled off to the tobacco fields to put in a day's work.  I believe we made $3 a day which sounds like a lot today when it was so long ago.  We'd get hauled back home around near dark but we'd be too tired to get into any mischief and that was a good thing!  What would kids do now if it were not for fast food jobs?  It is interesting to hear how your kids came up and good to hear that they worked!

Don, you are off traveling agin! I swear you travel more than anybody I know!  But that is a good thing.  Thanks for taking time to comment on this blog!!

 

Apr 17, 2013 10:18 AM
James Dray
Fathom Realty - Bentonville, AR

I did not mind picking corn but having to bend over all day long has really messed up my back.  Would not change those days for nothing. 

Apr 17, 2013 06:50 PM
Barbara S. Duncan
RE/MAX Advantage - Searcy, AR
GRI, e-PRO, Executive Broker, Searcy AR

James,  LOL.

Apr 17, 2013 09:22 PM
Anonymous
Anita Fuller

My friend and I picked strawberries for 2 days.  The man who owned the "patch" (field) picked us up at a designated point in Searcy, and we rode in the back of his pick-up truck.  My friend lasted one day, I quit after the second day.  I'm pretty sure we didn't make but 5 cents a quart....but whatever it was, I made enough to buy a ukelele - from Headlee's Rexall Drugstore, of all places.  Why would a drugstore be selling a ukelele? 

Apr 21, 2013 01:33 AM
#6
Barbara S. Duncan
RE/MAX Advantage - Searcy, AR
GRI, e-PRO, Executive Broker, Searcy AR

Anita, I'm proud of you for outlasting that friend.  Just think.  Can you even haul kids on the back of a pickup truck anymore?  The ukelele perhaps was a toy?

Apr 21, 2013 04:13 AM
Anonymous
Anita Fuller

Good point, Barbara about hauling people in the back of pick-up trucks.  Probably can't in this day and age of ridiculous rules and regulations.

NO, that uke was NOT A TOY. It was wooden, and I played on it and "entertained" (lol) my friends for years.  I even took it to college with me.  Wish I still had it today.  Have no idea where it is.

Apr 21, 2013 11:25 PM
#8
Barbara S. Duncan
RE/MAX Advantage - Searcy, AR
GRI, e-PRO, Executive Broker, Searcy AR

Anita, bet it was in your mother's auction of valuable things where you let great items go, including the gorgeous framed picture of YOU!

Apr 22, 2013 03:19 AM
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