When the Almond Tree Blooms

Note—I have left the names of businesses and individuals out; privacy is the priority at the expense of making this less personal. So it's been a long time since I've written anything on this blog, nearly a year in fact.  Last fall, I wrote prolifically about all sorts of things related to farming, and even though I am no longer farming, I will stick with the theme.  I am still here in the Central Valley of California, but hydraulic hoses, rice irrigation boards and white Ford Ranger trucks with screwdrivers as radio antennae are no longer a part of my life.  I am not posting any photos of the current work I do as an accounting graduate student at UC Davis: images of Bond Premium Amortization Schedules, Audit flowcharts and Section 179 property deductions somehow don’t compare with giant rice combines, grain bins full of popcorn and views across endless fields towards the Sutter Buttes.  Sills Farms, December 2012 So what is the connection between the tw...

Ready for another day of field work Spending long days in the cab of a John Deere 8410 belted tractor gives me a lot of alone time. When I'm not staring at the sheaths of earth left tossed up by the powerful steel disks in tow behind the tractor, I watch the rice trucks on Highway 99, which runs next to the field, or I observe the chickens, cranes and the crows as they feast on insects unearthed by cultivation. And I wonder how of all things I ended up driving a tractor on a farm in South Sutter County. It is because I spent these recent days alone on the tractor--and because Fall is the season for remembering and for contemplation of life and death-- that I have resurrected up this blog yet again. Sutter County Mornings I could go back years, trying to figure out how I ended up where I am, but a good starting point would be the Summer of 2009, when I began my fourth year as the Nutrition Education Site Coordinator, aka 'Garden Teacher' at Park Elementary...