Where are Herman’s trees?

The Glen Arbor Sun debuts their new Leelanau Farming Family Series with the beautiful article “Where are Herman’s trees?” by Rebecca Carlson that begins:

As my 80-year-old dad and I make the trek slowly up the heavily-canopied, half-century old two-track, I wonder what his reaction will be as we make it to the cherry orchard entrance. With the sun shining in our faces, Dad stops dead in his tracks and takes his first look at the orchard in several years. “Where are all the trees? Where are all Herman’s trees?” Silent and shaking his head, my Dad continues to scan the empty orchard. “Dad, all our trees were removed last year,” I say. “There were only about 20 cherry trees left.” He responds, “But I don’t remember agreeing to that.” While his eyes well with tears, I realize this was yet another loss of family ties and precious memories from our years of farming.

My grandfather Cedric found the orchard land for sale in 1970 during one of his many Sunday driving excursions through the Leelanau Peninsula. I never understood why he chose this area until I visited his birthplace in South Africa. His very large family lived and worked in Cape Town and vacationed in the coastal town of Hermanus. In 2016, as I drove through the farming valley surrounding Hermanus with all the vineyards and orchards, I understood my grandfather’s connection with Leelanau. It was a slice of home. The terrain and weather are almost identical to South Africa. He loved the cherry orchard and what it represented: a place for gathering family, a place to work the land, a place for his grandchildren to grow, a place to sing along while he played his guitar at the bonfire, and a place to fight over the single bathroom among 15 or more family members.

The orchard is protected on all sides by a thick forest and receives full sun all day. The quiet of the orchard is calming as there are no noises from Jacobson and Omena roads, just farm noises from our neighbors, the Herman and Priest families. At the peak production of the cherry orchard, there were 600 Montmorency cherry trees that covered about 10 acres of the total 60-acre farm. There is the old Omena stagecoach road that separates our orchard from Donny Herman’s perfectly manicured one. The Herman family cherry trees included several varieties: Queen Anne, Black and Sour along with apple trees in their larger orchard. We were a weekend farming family while the Herman Orchard was a full-time family business.

Read on for much more in the Sun!