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Old July 30, 2016   #2
kurt
Tomatovillian™
 
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Homestead,Everglades City Fl.
Posts: 2,488
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I hitchhiked all over the country back in the seventy's when it was cause celeb,and safe then.In NC got picked up by a trucker and hauled melons to the NJ wharehouses that supplied the City(NYC).We would pull up to melon fields at night,the sorters would turn the melons "butter color side up"so as the pickers would cut the vine and single file load them stacked strategically(no shifting) in the trailer only about halfway up trailor sides.No cardbord pallets then.The sorter told me that if you tap the melon you can tell degree of ripeness by three noises.If you knock your forehead that noise is too hard,your belly too ripe,but your chest is the right amount of water and fairly ripe.Look for butter color bottoms and striations (mini puntures in line) that bees and other insects try to get in the melon when they smell the sweetness.Spent three weeks during that melon season with the trucker and made a ton of cash.Sorter did mention that full moons produce heavier melons since the trucker sold them per/pound at the super market loading dock scales.
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Last edited by kurt; July 30, 2016 at 12:25 PM.
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