Interview With Nathan Heinrich

Claudia: “Where did you grow up, Nathan”

Nathan: “I grew up in a little farming community called ‘Wood Colony’ in Northern California.

My dad is a 5th generation walnut, almond, and grape farmer.

Growing up in a vineyard surrounded by walnut and almond orchards with my incredible parents, two lovely sisters, and six amazing brothers was very special.

The older I get, the more I realize just how special.

We had a pretty wonderful childhood – not perfect – there was never a dull moment.  I don’t recall ever being bored.”

Claudia: “Wow, there were 9 of you? I bet you have some fantastic memories of your life as a farmer’s son.

What memories from your childhood in California that you would like to share?”

Nathan: “Great question, there are so many.

One of my earliest memories is standing in my great-grandfather’s vineyard in late summer or early fall during grape harvest, I was probably 4 years old.

My dad and grandpa were standing beside me and I was mesmerized by this sight that was unfolding in front of me.

The leaves on the vines were dusty and some of them were beginning to turn a brownish yellow.

The air was filled with an earthy sweetness – I can still remember the smell.

On top of the soil, between each row of vines, was a 3-foot-wide sheet of cream-colored paper running the entire length of the row.

Moving towards us were groups of men talking loudly and laughing amongst themselves as they worked fast cutting bunches of golden-green Thomson Seedless grapes and throwing them onto the long sheet of paper.

They were making sun-dried raisins, but as a little boy, I had no idea what was going on.

I thought it was so strange that these grown men were throwing those delicious grapes right onto the ground, but I did feel a bit better that they were throwing them onto the paper.

I recall going for a walk with my parents and brothers several days later and seeing that the grapes had shriveled up and turned brown.

My dad let us taste them. They were warm and sweet. Some were so dry they were almost crunchy and others were still squishy.

That’s how I learned where raisins came from!

Wild huh?

I have so many memories like that.”

Claudia: “That’s a beautiful memory, Nathan. I’ve never even thought about how raisins were made – so interesting. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to grow up with 8 siblings.

How did your parents manage it? Where do you fall in the birth order?”

Nathan: “I have no earthly idea how my parents did it!

To this day when I think back on them raising all 9 of us it actually kind of stresses me out.

But they did it and none of us died, although we sure tried to kill ourselves countless times! (laughs out loud)

I was the 2nd born, so I helped raise the younger ones – almost like a 3rd parent. I loved it – except when we would go out into public.

When all 11 of us showed up anywhere together like a restaurant – and we seemed to have eaten out at restaurants quite often probably to give my mom a break from cooking – we would get such crazy reactions from people.

People, especially older people, would come up to our table and ask my parents, ‘Are they all yours?’, ‘They’re such beautiful children and so well-behaved’.

My parents would be just beaming with pride and say, ‘Thank you! Yep, they’re all ours! God has blessed us.’

I wanted to just hide under the table out of embarrassment.

We stuck out like a sore thumb – we couldn’t go anywhere without people staring at us and asking my parents questions about the ‘school’ or ‘orphanage’ they were running.”

Claudia: “Did you all work on the farm growing up?”

Nathan: “Yes we did. But we had two types of work.

We had household chores like dishes and laundry that we did every day and we also had outdoor chores like yard work and feeding the dogs, horses, and chickens.

Oh also milking the goats!

I can’t tell you how many goats I have milked in my life or how many gallons of milk I was responsible for – I hated that job.

The goats were my mom’s project, we didn’t even drink the milk. I think maybe my mom sold it to people to feed to their calves – or maybe my younger siblings drank it – but my older brothers and I hated it and we refused to drink it.

We didn’t get paid for our chores, but when we worked for my dad in the fields driving tractors, helping with the harvest, or anything related to farming, he would always pay us cash.

I think we made 5 per hour. It was nice to make some cash working for my dad.

But as I got older I didn’t have so much fun operating farm equipment. It sort of stressed me out.

My dad is an amazing farmer with an excellent reputation, but he was always under a lot of pressure to get everything done right and as fast as possible.

I remember the day, when I was 11, that I decided I didn’t want to be a farmer.

It was during the almond harvest. Almond orchards are the driest dustiest places on the planet and the harvesting equipment whips up so much dust that by the end of the day you are covered head to toe in powdery brown dust that you have to use an air-blower at the end of the day to get it all off of you before you can go in the house.

Anyway, my dad was extra stressed out that particular day and he was trying to teach me how to drive the sweeper in a very particular pattern so that after 4 or 5 passes, over several rows of almond trees, this machine would have all the nuts that had been shaken out of the trees onto the ground into neat narrow windrows.

But the more he tried to explain the complicated pattern to my poor little non-mathematically inclined mind, the less I understood and the more frustrated he became.

He left me totally confused to go to several other fields to manage his other workers.

Try as I might, I couldn’t figure out how to get the pattern right.

The more I tried the more of a mess I made until I was just crying out of sheer panic and misery.

Needless to say, when my dad returned several hours later he was less than pleased to find his orchard a total mess and his son a dusty crying wreck!

That was the end of my commercial farming career. Ha ha ha!”