"It's not as easy as it looks," said Daniel Walker as he twisted the large red apple upward and off the tree.

"It definitely takes some finesse," added Shelby Mason. "Any wrong kind of movement pulls the stem right out."

The two men are apple pickers, each with about a day and a half of experience. They are also inmates from the Olympic Corrections Center in Clallam County.

But this week Walker, 31, and Mason, 43, are in Quincy, picking apples with about 100 other low-risk offenders at a meticulously-groomed orchard of small, new-variety apple trees owned by McDougall & Sons, a Wenatchee-based fruit packer.

"We've all done some wrong things in our lives. Now we're doing some right things," said Walker, who is serving time for residential burglary.

"This is a good opportunity to get away from where we were and help farmers out," said Mason, a Tacoma man incarcerated for possession of a stolen vehicle.

The DOC transported workers Monday from its minimum security work camp near Forks to pick the 200-acre orchard. The job should be finished by Friday. The orchard has about 1,000 bins of valuable Jazz apples, a cross between Gala and Braeburn apples grown under license to certain growers.

"They were desperate to get the crop off before it gets too cold," said Danielle Wiles, assistant director for Correctional Industries, the DOC wing that finds jobs and offers job training to inmates. McDougall & Sons declined comment on the hiring.

State apple growers sounded an alarm in recent weeks of a severe shortage of pickers. Signs were put up at orchards. Ads were taken out on radio. Newspapers and TV stations reported the story of the shortage after Gov. Chris Gregoire put out a call for help. Many unemployed workers did apply for jobs, but few stayed.

"It's hard work," she said. There are seven guards to make sure the inmate workers stay on the job until it's done, but it's an expensive proposition for the grower, Wilis admits. McDougall will pay $22 an hour for each inmate. Inmates are paid minimum wage, but deductions for crime compensation, incarceration costs, child support and other bills reduces that to between $1 and $2 an hour. Most of what growers are charged pays for transportation, housing and security. Most inmates picked three or four 800-pound bins of apples in that first day.

"Everyone out here is doing the best they can. We're starting to pick it up," said Walker, who grew up in Wenatchee and picked a little for his grandmother as a kid. Sure enough, the crew picked 209 bins Monday, but expected to bring in at least 350 bins Tuesday.

"Quality is number one," said Sgt. James O'Hara, one of the DOC officers overseeing the picking. Each bin was inspected several times while the pickers work. They're rated on an eight-step scale based on the number of bruises, stem pulls and other factors to determine work that results in perfect fruit. "We don't want them to get real fast and careless."

Some inmates were picking one or two bins in a day. A few had already figured out how to get six or more by the second day. The trees are short and require little ladder work. Picking was something new for nearly all the workers, but it doesn't take long to learn, O'Hara said.

"We're all learning as we go," he said.

The inmates work eight hours a day. The stay in large tents and eat in a covered dining area set up in the orchard. An inmate kitchen crew prepares all meals in a mobile kitchen, the same one inmates use to serve meals for up to 1,600 state Department of Natural Resources firefighters at large forest fires, said Kevin Pearson, kitchen manager.

Wiles said she didn't know why McDougall & Sons couldn't find workers to do the job, but she was happy to put the inmates to work to relieve the crisis.

"We won't and by law can't displace civilian workers. They have priority," said Wiles. "This is the first time we've done this, but it's something we'd be willing to do again. It's going pretty well. There's been no security issues, the company is happy and the offenders are enjoying being out here."

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Information from: The Wenatchee World, http://www.wenatcheeworld.com