The Wine Commonsewer™

Abandoned Tower, Abandoned Nest

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

Out beyond the ridge where I walk with the dogs, towers like this one dot the landscape where oranges used to grow. It once held a large, electrically powered propeller blade. The unit, mounted atop the tower, somewhat resembled an aircraft engine and cowling. 

On cold, still, cloudless nights, heat escapes from the orchards allowing frigid air to settle and freeze the citrus. When the anti-frost fans are fired up, there is a rumble like a low-flying aircraft. Typically two-bladed, the fan moves air through the groves which, in turn, prevents frost from forming on the fruit.  

The technology represented a dramatic improvement over smokey, messy, polluting smudge pots, which burned oil or, later, diesel fuel. Smudge pots worked by warming the orchards with heat and smoke which also left a thin coating of smudge on the fruit, helping to prevent frost from forming. And messy they were, when I was a vagrant little kid, my dog came home black as coal after spending the better part of the night in an orchard. 

The nest near the top of the ladder is likely a hawk's nest, though it could have belonged to an eagle.   

As Ever,

TWC

Photo Credit: TWC 02-29-2008 ©

Yucca in Bloom

Photo Credit: TWC, all rights reserved

California Cooper's Hawk

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

This Cooper's Hawk was perched on this dead tree near a dirt road out over the ridge that TWC hikes to in the morning. I had been sneaking up on him but, apparently, I had gotten about as close as he was gonna stand for.

Years ago, there were acres and acres of orange groves up here on this plateau and now the land has begun to revert to its natural state.

As Always,

TWC

Photo Credit: TWC 03-02-2011 ©

Dead Orange Tree

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

TWC often walks this way. It's over the ridge, on the plateau where Navel Oranges once grew in an area several miles square. Odds are you've eaten one of them, although this was the periphery of So Cal's version of the Gold Rush.

They're gone now, victimized by the price of water or, perhaps, enticed into early demise by the dazzle of the developer's patter. Not that the patter is buying anything in this county. The Guy has been working on that for eight years. Ain't no percentage in it now, The County has seen to that. Meanwhile, the interest is still due quarterly.

Gone now. Except this one (and a couple of others).

Why this one? Who decided that this tree was to be spared the bulldozer and the chainsaw? To what purpose? For what reason? The others are long since cleared, cut to size, stacked into cordwood, and shrink wrapped into five log bundles, which you'll find at Christmas time, where summer Kingsford was neatly stacked on the front porch of the local Whole Foods or Pavilions. A couple of sweet-burning bundles of orange wood will do a lovely fire on Christmas Eve with la familia.

As Ever,

TWC