Freshies!!

Freshies!! We got THREE TONS of fresh fruits and vegetables last Thursday! They were brought in on the med-evac flight that had to come down for Izzy, one of the carpenters, who developed appendicitis. She and her husband John returned to Christchurch where she has gotten the medical attention she needed. The latest news says that she's recovering well. Here's a link to an article with more details. Lots of people worked overtime to build the runway on the ice shelf in five days so that a plane could safely land and take off. As it turns out, the weather on the day of the flight was perfect: clear with no wind. I saw the plane as it appeared out of the north, where there was a faint strip of sunlight on the horizon. It was as if a small finger of life reached out from the sunlit areas of civilization to rescue a sick person and deliver gifts for everyone else. Wow!

Once the freshies arrived at the galley, I helped unload them from the palette and sort them in the cold storage room.

Untying the palette filled with over 6000 pounds of fruits and vegetables.

Shane passes the boxes of freshies from inside the palette...

...so that they can be placed on the conveyor belt into the cold storage room.

The conveyor belt from inside the cold storage room.

Justin and Emily sort everything into different stacks.

"What on earth could this be? I haven't seen anything like it in months!"

Larissa surrounded by piles of fresh fruits and vegetables! This room was empty before the flight arrived.

Emily's muscles got big from lifting heavy boxes. :)

Emily loves her melons. 

Butternut squash!! Last night, the cook sautéed several of these squashes for dinner and they were SOOOOOO tasty!

Shane pulls out ripe bananas to put out for dinner that night.

Mmmmmm... I enjoyed my first fresh fruit in several months! Later that night though, my stomach wasn't too happy.

Larry savors a slice of papaya at Sunday brunch. Mmmm, and it was really ripe and sweet.

My plate of food at Sunday brunch included fresh pineapple, green grapes, watermelon, kiwi, and banana!

P.S. Apparently it takes the digestive system a while to reintegrate fresh fruits and veggies after a period without them. My stomach was a bit out of whack all weekend. But I didn't care. :)-