Kountry Komputer Repair & Cherry Picking

So word got around the hollow here that I knew a little bit about fixing computers. It's good to be known for something, especially something besides being the weird guy on the hill who doesn't talk to anyone. I ran into one of our neighbors, got to talking with him and heard his wife was having trouble with their computer, so I offered to come by and try and help out. I walked down the hill with a couple beers in my backpack and a thumbdrive loaded with Spybot, Ad-Aware and CrapCleaner. Even though I was about an hour later than I had told them to expect me, they welcomed me in and took me to the disobedient computer. She explained that the thing was crashing repeatedly and that she could not get any music or videos to play when she was on the internet. I ran my anti-spyware programs, found some malware and removed it then got down to figuring out the lack of audio and video. It was the first time I had ever messed around on a Windows 7 system, but I knew something wasn't right with the Flash plug-in. I reinstalled Flash a couple times and still couldn't get anything to play before I tried to go into the add-on modules and saw that Flash had been disabled. One click and everything was back in business, they were pretty impressed and I was happy I had been able to do something useful for them.


First question: Is your computer plugged in?

Anyways, a week later I got a call from her asking if my computer was having any trouble connecting to the internet. We had a power outage that morning for about 3 hours, so I assumed that her modem hadn't been reset. Then she mentioned that her monitor wasn't working either, just wouldn't turn on she said. I was embarrassed to ask, but I did anyways, "Did you make sure everything is plugged into the wall and the computer?" She assured me it was, so I said I would come by the next day and check it out. I brought a monitor with me so I could be sure it was a hardware issue, in which case I knew I wouldn't be able to do much for her. When I got down there and took a look, the monitor was plugged in alright but the power strip wasn't. It only took me a minute to look like a computer whiz this time. So now I've become the computer guy here in the hollow, I suppose there are worse things to be known for like the guy making meth in his trailer or the dude who wanders around late at night stealing stuff off people's porches.


In SF, Apple was a brand of computer I worked on
Here, it's something I spend my days working on thinning off our trees

When I'm not removing spyware or plugging in computers, I've been spending most of my time picking cherries and then washing, pitting, bagging and freezing em. April had the brilliant idea that instead of selling em fresh or even baking pies to sell, we could make jams and preserves that would keep much longer and eliminate the need to process and pit them immediately before they spoiled. The other big advantage with her idea is that since we are doing everything organically, not every cherry, apple or peach will look perfect; so putting them into jars allows us a little leeway with the bumped & misshaped fruits. There's no one we have been able to find around here selling organic jams and preserves, actually no one seems to even be trying to grow peaches or cherries organically period. So hopefully we can fill that niche and sell to all the neo-hippies and health conscious yuppies up in Blowing Rock and Boone. However, I'm pretty sure $5 organic jams aren't going to sell like hotcakes at the Jamestown Flea Market. April is already the queen of canning with her pressure cooker she has had since we were in SF, now she will have to show me the in and outs of pectin and preservation. I'm thinking the best thing about her jam idea is that we won't have to worry about the fruit going bad before we get it to market or sell it, we won't have to give it away at the end of a hot day sitting in a stall at the farmers market, we can just pack it up and bring back the jam next week or use it ourselves this winter. Who wouldn't want some fresh cherry jam on their hot buttered toast on a frigid December morning?

freshly picked sour pie cherries waiting for the deep freeze

One way I can tell time is passing faster than I can account for is that my Master Gardener class is finally over after 3 months. I learned enough to not need to do a google search for plant diseases every time I see a hole or spot on a tree leaf, enough to feel comfortable trying to grow fruit with just compost and neem oil but not quite enough to avoid saying dumb things to April's ma like, "Oh! That's one of those things you use to take the green stuff off the top of strawberries!" when she hands me a strawberry huller. Live and learn, hopefully I've got plenty of both left to do up here on Cardinal Ridge