Hi Robin, 

Thanks for reaching out with your question about pears! Picking and ripening pears is a bit trickier than some other tree fruits that ripen on the tree. Pears are picked before they are ripe. You can watch to make sure they have grown to full size and then test to see if they slip off the tree easily. The pears should come off the tree easily when you lift and twist them. The should still be hard. This article on our website has a few more tips that might help, depending on the variety of pears you have: https://extension.oregonstate.edu/ask-extension/featured/when-are-pears-ready-be-picked

Once picked, most pears can sit at room temperature (or just below) until they soften up a bit and take on a mellow pear smell. There are some varieties of "winter pears," however, that do best if you store them in the refrigerator for 1-2 months before ripening them at room temperature. Anjou, Comice, and Bosc are all types of winter pears that require that period of cold storage before ripening. The attached PDF has some more information on the ripening process. Your pears look like they might be Comice pears, though it's hard to say definitively. I would recommend trying the cold storage process.

I hope these resources help you with your pear harvest!

Jared