Getting the Answers to Our Endless Questions

We are always interested about the weather and geological features as we explore a new part of this beautiful country of ours. Right now we are in the San Joaquin Valley of California, looking up into the foothills of the mighty Sierra Nevada mountains. As we drove out of Sequoia National Park, we passed by Lake Kaweah, a beautiful mountain lake encircled by peaks.

We had just driven through snow and fog, wearing our biggest coats. Now we are suddenly in a valley with rows of citrus trees as far as we can see. There are oranges and lemons hanging on the trees, ready to harvest. We needed the answer to the burning question, "How can snow and citrus be just a few miles apart?"

We drove by miles of these almond trees, and finally parked beside an orchard to see if they had any almonds growing yet.

But we must be mistaken, because the tiny fruits on these trees had velvet skins just like the peaches we used to grow in our backyard. We had another question, "These had to be peach trees, right?"

We found some things blooming, but we had no ideas what these small trees were that we spotted on this country road side. We often take the "road less traveled" just to see the crops in an area. But we obviously need a ride-along horticulturist to explain what we were seeing and answer our endless questions in this agriculture-rich California central valley.

After seeing all the pistachio and almond trees around us, we were hoping to buy some of the local nut harvest. So we went to the "Naturally Nuts" store in Visalia. They did have a great selection of nut products, but our best find here was the manager.

A life-long farmer, John Oneto was happy to answer all our questions. He proudly pointed out that Tulare County is the #1 largest agricultural producing county in the United States. He answered our first question about those fuzzy things we saw on the trees. The reason they look so familiar is that the almond and peach are cousins. If you crack open a peach seed, you find a little almond-like nut inside. So that's why they look so similar on the tree when they are young. Interesting! John also pointed out this looks like a slim year for almonds, as they should be much closer together on the branch than this.

John also explained that the foothills are the prime location for the citrus trees, that must be protected from freezing temperatures. The mountains actually shield them from colder temperatures that will settle further away in the valley. We have seen the giant fans in these orchards, and wondered if they had heaters attached to them. John explained that the fans simply mix the warmer air that rises in the atmosphere with the colder air close to the ground. The farmers will also water the trees with the warm well water on cold nights to keep the fruit from freezing.

We talked about the netting we had seen over some of the citrus trees. This seemed a little extreme, but we assumed it was to protect the fruit from birds.  John explained that it was actually to protect the blossoms from bees. These trees produce seedless fruit, unless the bloom is visited by a bee. That pollination would cause certain seedless citrus to have seeds.

We have driven by many miles of grape orchards, but we were wondering why we saw no local wineries. John answered that burning question for us, because he knew that this area usually grows table grapes instead of wine grapes. 

The plants are just starting to turn green now, but we'll be buying these grapes in a couple months. Just a few miles north, they raise grapes for raisins. We drove through Selma, California, the raisin capitol of the world. In celebration, we bought some raisins. We didn't take a picture, however, because we "accidentally" bought the raisins that were covered with chocolate. So instead, our picture below is another of the grape orchards we passed.

On the topographical map that John showed us, the central valley of California actually looks like a bowl, with mountains surrounding it. Its proximity to the ocean and these mountains gives it the perfect conditions to grow the most agricultural products of any place in the world. They are watered by the melting snow from the surrounding mountains. Even through the recent drought, California has kept producing the fruits, vegetables, and nuts necessary to feed much of the world. John seemed as delighted to answer all of our endless agricultural questions as we were to finally get to ask them. Before we left his store, he gave us his card and phone number in case we had more questions. We bought some of his delicious products, and we can definitely recommend the Naturally Nuts store in Visalia.

John also talked about this region's dairies, since Tulare county produces more milk than any other county in the nation. We tried to visit the Rosa Brothers Dairy for one of their tours. But our timing was off, so we could only see their creamery. They were bottling milk the day we were visiting, and it was interesting to witness this small operation. They also give free samples, so we tried several products. We came out of there with a quart of root beer milk, and a small container of mint chocolate chip ice cream. No, we're not on diets. This was the largest sizes we could afford. With the $2 deposit for the glass bottle, a quart of milk costs $5. We bought the tiny size of ice cream, because one pint carton was $4.25. But Mark has been enjoying super-rich root beer floats made with the root beer milk and his cheap vanilla ice cream.

We got another agricultural lesson when we visited the International Agri-Center museum in Tulare. A group of school children had just left, but we also enjoyed watching the same films that the students watch on their tours. Seated on garden tractors, we could listen to questions posed in the educational films, then choose answers based on the buttons we pushed on our tractor dashboards.

They also had a museum featuring tractors and implements used in the Central Valley long ago. Denisa is dwarfed by a 1918 Avery 40 80 tractor, with its metal wheels.

Standing on her tip-toes, Denisa could barely see where she was driving. 

Mark is standing beside a 1895 Rumely steam engine, the oldest tractor in their collection. It was a complicated time to be a tractor-driver. These guys had to stoke the fire with fresh coal, monitor all the steam levels, and still find the time to steer the tractor where it needed to go.

We feel like we've made great strides this day in getting our endless agricultural questions answered. Now if we could get answers to our other questions like, "Why do I always remember the item I really need to buy right AFTER I get home from the store?"