This winter, I got to up to Newcastle to work at my grandparents orchard every Saturday to help sort, sell, and bag mandarins. While I was working at S&J Mandarin Grove, it was fun getting to experience real work and experience the amazing feeling of getting paid. BUT IT WAS HARD WORK! They have 5 acres of mandarin trees including all different types such as satsuma, tangos, clementines, and a whole bunch more. 350 trees out of their grand total are the Owari Satsuma mandarin trees.
As my grandpa (the “S” for Steve) picked and brought back mandarins, I worked hard along with my grandma (the “J” for June) to sort out the bad ones from the good ones and bag them up for people to buy. Although the work we did was hard, it was actually really cool to get some work exposure. They have a scale so we can weigh the bags. There are 2, 4, 7, 11, and 15 pound bags and we had to back a ton of each. You get orange under your nails from bagging, sorting out the bad ones, and having a snack. That’s one of the benefits to the job… FREE SNACKS.
