Fallen Fruits
When I went out to do farm chores the temperature was 18° with winds so strong all the snow had blown from the hillsides leaving them eerily bare while the rest of the pastures were blanketed white. Despite no bare skin and multiple layers on my head and face, the trek down to the barn left me with an ice cream headache without the pleasure of salted caramel and chocolate swirled into vanilla. The windchill was close to zero. Sounds miserable, right? But I'll take it. Every last bitter cold moment. Sure, Sunday was cold, but we got through fine. Farmers made it to the market; customers were able to shop. All was right with our world.
Occasionally the market gets cancelled. Sometimes it's an art festival and at other times it's been snow or single digit temperatures. Even a global pandemic didn't cancel our farmers market. No matter what life has tossed our way we always come back the following week.
Last week at market I was talking with a customer who orders their citrus from one of my old neighbors in the Ojai Valley. That neighbor was a huge inspiration for me to participate in farmers markets once I began farming in the mid-Atlantic. We’re all counting down the days until Pixie tangerine season starts. I look forward to the big box of assorted citrus and avocados that shows up on my doorstep every year right around Valentine's Day. Tree-ripened citrus is comparable to vine-ripened summer tomatoes so you can understand our anticipation. But this week my heart grew heavy for my friends and fellow farmers in the Ojai Valley who regularly trek down to Los Angeles for their markets.
As news from a growing wildfire in my old surfing grounds trickled in, I pushed myself to be grateful it wasn’t me as the only sound was the squeak of my boots on powdered snow. What would it feel like on the farm if the winds were more than twice what I was experiencing this week? What if they were 80° and whipping up a maelstrom setting the pastures ablaze? What would happen to the stone and chestnut timber barn that has stood before the fight for independence from the British? How would I evacuate the hundreds of animals here? I've seen what happens to livestock that can't escape fast moving wildfires in canyons. It's gruesome and one of the reasons that I chose to head east to fulfill my dreams of being a full time farmer and selling direct to customers through the farmers markets.
Over the years I’ve tried to explain how the cold impacts the farm to my southern California friends who often call to check on me when a polar vortex or any other extreme weather event occurs. This week it’s cold enough that even the pesty grown bottle babies who must follow me everywhere have chosen to stay nestled warm in their bedding. I look at them and try not to cry because the tears would freeze on my face just as errant sprays of water from an ill- fitting hose clamp have frozen my coat and my wet gloves to the hydrant when I fill the heated stock tanks. Even in inclement weather, the water still flows, which is more that can be said about the emergency hydrants in the Palisades and Malibu. Queue the political conspiracy theories. No, those systems and hydrants were meant for fighting one house fire, not the whole town on fire. This time it would be me calling in to check on them.
In 1993 I was helping to evacuate livestock from the exact same area now on fire again. Wildfires are no joke. They are loud, cacophonous, messy and terrifying. While we wring our hands and fret over our political existentialism, real life is happening in our country which will greatly impact our food supply. Just up the road from these massive wild fires is the Oxnard Plain, home to miles of produce fields that help feed the rest of the country, especially during the winter months. Environmental and logistic impacts will be felt for months to come.
Locomotive winds are barreling through the canyons and valleys where much of the premium citrus and avocados are grown in this country just as the crops are reaching peak ripeness. This means much of the fruit has been blown from the trees and is now on the ground. At this time of year it doesn't take much to pluck fruit from the trees so when freight train winds tear through an orchard much of the fruit gets blown off the trees. Thanks to the Food Modernization Safety Act, that fruit is illegal to sell to customers; it cannot be picked up and sold. My social media feed is full of images from old friends’ orchards that have been devastated with almost all of their crop now on the ground. So when prices on avocados and citrus spike, it will be Mother Nature’s doing and no one in the government will be able to reduce the cost of your orange juice.
But people who work the land are a fearless bunch and whenever I send messages of support, the respond with the assurance that the orchards have survived over 100 years of wildfires, floods, mud slides, earthquakes, and cheap imports. They will find a way to get food to their customers even when the fruit has fallen from the trees and the neighborhood where their farmers market once was is now a pile of rubble and ash.