Knocking almonds One year my brother and I contracted to knock almonds for a man. The almond trees were in neat rows. They're about the size peach trees. The branches were low-down and easy to climb up into. Each morning when we arrived at the man's farm, we would put a harness on the horse, attach it to long sled and head out into the field. The sled was about 16 feet long and about 3 feet wide. On one side it had a large canvas cloth which was split down the middle. We would unroll those cloths so that one part of the cloth when on one side of the tree and the other cloth will go the other side of the tree. We would climb up into the tree and with a mallet that we carried in her hand. The mallet was like an ax handle that had a rubber tire wrapped around it. We would hit the branches without mallet and almonds with falloff on the tarp. We would pick up the tarp and walk back toward the sled thus dumping the almonds into the sled.

We did make much money on that job because the farmer kept adding trees to our contract. We would finish one stand of trees and he would add another stand of trees. It was not a very successful operation.