Mistletoe Harvest – French-style?

Harvestnormandy_1920s30s Sunday 2nd Dec – and a day spent harvesting mistletoe.  I’m out with TEME, the online mistletoe trading group from Tenbury, and we have a number of largish orders to fulfill in the next few days.

Since TEME only deal in ‘processed’ mistletoe – ie mistletoe tready to be used, not ‘raw’ on the branch we want to minimise the amount of waste we take back to the barn – so we have a team of 4, 2 in the trees (an apple orchard, naturally) and 2 on the ground, cuttting into lengths and putting straight into crates, for transfer to postal boxes later. 

French_harvest_1932_near_caen_la__2 Very very labour-intensive, and it’s a bit cold and windy too.  But fascinating nevertheless.  I haven’t brought my camera, but wish I had, as our small group, half up trees and half on the ground with cates, look just like those 1920s and 30s pics I have (see previous blogs and pics here) of the French harvest (for export to Britain).