 |
|
Southern
Living Magazine - June 2002
|
|
Click
thumbnail below to view that page of the article. |
 |
 |
 |
|
| Cherry-Picking
Time |
A
desire for simpler ways and good, clean country life led
these big-city writers home to a rural Virginia Orchard.
Frank Levering rests a lanky elbow and one mud-caked boot
on the rungs of a tall wooden ladder, then waxes poetic.
"I love ladders" he says earnestly, his blue
eyes cataloging nicks and scratches on one of his 150-strong
arsenal. "I guess my worker gets attached to the
tools of his trade. For me, owning an orchard, that means
ladders-such simple, elegant forms. They're like bridges
between the ground
|
 |
 |
|
and the sky, physical links between me and the fruit."
|
|
Above:
Wanda Urbanska, husband Frank Levering, and their son,
Henry live simply yet abundantly among the cherries of
levering Orchard. |
|
Moving and propping the 20- to 26-footers take most
of Frank's time in early summer, when Levering Orchard's
pick-your-own cherry harvest attracts swarms of bucket-toting
customers to southwest Virginia.
Nearly
two decades ago, Frank and his wife, fellow writer Wanda
Urbanska, looked to simplify lives grown far too hectic
in Hollywood, California. Was it possible for two fast-track
authors---he a screenwriter, she a journalist---to escape
chaotic city life and succeed in an orchard high in
the Blue Ridge Mountains?
|
|
Back to Family Land
Seventeen
years, a half-dozen books, a few stage scripts, one
child (Henry, now 5), and many fruit harvests later,
the answer is clear. Between reaping and writing, the
couple has carved a cozy niche. Frank and Wanda watch
over the same hillsides that his parents and grandparents
once tended, just off the Blue Ridge Parkway near Orchard
Gap.
"My
grandfather Ralph Levering started this orchard in 1908,"
Frank says. "He farmed strawberries and
|
|
sweet potatoes in Tennessee before, got tired of stooping
for a living, and decided to reach for the sky here instead."
He picked the location for its prime growing conditions,
especially a so-called thermal belt that forms naturally
at a certain elevation and protects fruit from damaging
frosts in spring.
Frank's
father, Sam Levering---a dedicated Quaker just as Grandpa
was and Frank is today---worked the family orchard nearly
his whole life. "When I was a kid, Dad would send
|
|
|
me
climbing ladders to the tops of the trees to pick fruit,"
Frank recalls.
The
youngest of six children, Frank left home to climb a
different kind of ladder. He studied would religions
and writing at Harvard, met and married Wands, and headed
to California. She reported news for the Los Angeles
Herald Examiner and wrote a book called The Singular
Generation: Young Americans in the 1980s. He crafted
screenplays and prowled the film studio party scene,
networking with agents and producers to sell his scripts.
Increasingly
girded by the material trappings of success, Frank and
Wanda noticed that something as missing. In the mid-1980s
they moved from slick Hollywood to sleepy Ararat, Virginia---and
in the process became gurus of the "voluntary simplicity"
movement.
Glad
They Returned
Come
cherry-picking time each June, many people are glad
Frank and Wanda returned.
|
|
|
 |
Under their care, Levering Orchard has grown into
the largest cherry orchard in the South. Other fruit
thrives---apples, nectarines, apricots, and more---but
nearly 4,000 cherry trees, in 40-plus varieties
on some 30 acres, reign as the trademark Levering
produce.
Months
of pruning, fertilizing, mowing, and worrying
about bud-nipping frost and fruit-splitting rains
lead to June, when the harvest season begins.
Cherry picking lasts a month or more the sweet
kinds ripening first, followed by their sour
|
|
|
 |
|
Unfailingly
cheerful Wanda---tall and thin, her blond hair tied in
a ponytail, cherry earrings dangling---answers a steadily
ringing phone. She assures pickers the orchard is open,
give directions and weather updates, lists what's ripe
when, and explains the you-pick prices.
Visitors
linger at the packing-house, trading stories. "I
brew cherry beer," one picker says by way of introduction,
leading to talk about an old-timer who makes cherry
brandy. "We're nuts about fruit," proclaims
a regular. His wife explains, "We have to pick
two buckets in order to get one bucket back to the house."
Another woman offers this: "Cherries are so beautiful
on the trees, hanging in clusters, glistening. To eat
them right off the branch is a joy that can't be duplicated."
Picking
and Penning
Orchard
work keeps them busy, but Frank and Wanda still ply
the literary world as well. They've coauthored books
about living simply, adjusting to small-town life, and
cooking with fruit, publishing some through their own
Orchard Gap Press. They've also appeared in PBS documentaries
with titles such as Running Out of Time and Escape From
Affluenza: Living Better on Less.
Writing,
reaping raising Henry, and moving ladders keep the couple
happily occupied. In all these pursuits, they rely on
the collective wisdom of friends, family members, and
past generations that helped to build the haven they
now share. "My dad passed away a few years ago,"
Frank says, "but every day, in the orchard, I hear
him talking to me."
Joe
Rada
|
| Picking
Fruit
Levering
Orchard nestles 2 miles off the Blue Ridge Parkway at
Orchard Gap, 75 miles southwest of Roanoke and 10 miles
north of Mount Airy, North Carolina. Cherries ripen
in June and early July; apricots, peaches, nectarines,
plums, and pears in July and August; apples from July
through November. Contact Levering Orchard at 163 Levering
Lane, Ararat, VA 24053; (276) 755-4837 or www.leveringorchard.com.
|
 |
|
distributes
containers, and offers tips on where, what, and how to
pick. Then he helps load brimming buckets into car trunks.
He insists that people eat plenty of cherries as they
work, even though they only pay for those weighed and
bagged when they leave.
"We see two main types of cherry pickers," say
Frank. "The hard-core ones take it seriously, quickly
filling as many buckets as they can. They put up preserves,
freeze a bunch, bake a lot, and give some away. Others
have a recreational approach, eating almost as many as
they put in buckets, enjoying a day outdoors, bringing
picnics, and setting up playpens. For them, it's and annual
tradition."
In
the Packinghouse
Wanda
spends these busy days in the packinghouse, a cavernous,
tin-roofed holdover from the orchard's earlier heyday
when it served a s a major apple-shipping center. She
and some
helpers weigh pickers' bounty on secondhand scales,
then transfer cherries into homeward-bond bags, boxes,
and kettles.
|
|
above, far left:
For some, being there is as rewarding as filling buckets.
above: Tall wooden ladders reach the sweet cherries.
"I still feel a certain mystique about ladders,"
says Frank. far left: Levering Orchard enjoys a
tertific view from the Blue Ridge Mountains. |
cousins. Pickers arrive by the thousands, most of them
repeat visitors who relish being out in the fresh air.
For
Frank, a few friends, and hired hands, it's a season
of dawn-to-dusk ladder moving. He meets and greets visitors,
|
|
|
