The Trek West -Brawley Olive Farm
The sound of owls Hooting to each other across the paddock lulled us to sleep . . . and a chorus of song birds (and ever present Wood pigeons’ hooHOOhuh) woke us this morning. Very pleasant.
Yesterday when we pulled in and opened up the trailer . . . there was a stowaway! The tiniest Zebra jumping spider sitting on the bathroom door. Lifted its front pair of legs in greeting . . . and peered up cheekily. I carefully encouraged it onto a piece of kitchen towel, and s/he was deposited on a nearby log. A neighbouring spider (different species) took grave exception to this interloper – from Arizona no less – and rushed out to defend its territory. A passing aphid just hoped to be overlooked by both.
Groves of olive trees . . . a driveway lined with pomegranates, agave and bird of paradise plants – not quite in leaf. . . fields of alfalfa newly mown, drying in the sun . . . and behind us an expanse of sugar beets. We sat in the shade watching planes loop-the-loop way off to the west . . . leaving ‘hearts’ and ‘circles’ in wispy white smoke . . . practising perhaps? A chopper swooped in low over the olive and palm trees before banking away . . . finished for the day. The spray bars either side quite evident . . . but fortunately not in use!
Although the trailer has a large holding tank for fresh water, which is great for washing, cooking, washing up etc. we also have 5 gallon and 1 gallon containers for potable drinking water. Just realized that the hand pump on the big tank sounds remarkably like an alpaca!
Despite an unexpected problem in the farm’s bottling shop, Clive was generous with his time . . . explaining the olive oil process. The trees here on the farm are for looks only . . . there are 40,000 others in nearby Westmorland which are pruned so that machinery does the harvesting . . . not the old traditional methods of using nets handpicking/beating the trees. Like many places it’s getting increasingly difficult to rely on consistent workers. And what an array of products . . . classic extra virgin oil, but also flavoured with lemon … orange.. basil… jalapeno … Mediterranean … green chili. Multi-flavoured dipping oils .. . balsamic vinegar . . . jars of olives . . honey. What to choose! All grown/harvested/produced here at Desert Olive farm. And there’s no downtime . . . it produces 365 days a year . . . 9 crops of alfalfa . . . the sugar beets for processing into white sugar . . . and the day we arrived they’d just processed a million pounds of onions! Their main store is located in Yuma – which is where Grace spends much of her time – but we were in luck. A crop duster had just arrived to say the winds were good, were we OK with him spraying Sulphur on a neighbouring field in about an hour . . . just as Grace arrived. So we had a good chat, finished packing, and headed off . . . no pongy rotten egg smell!
