Opening Day

You could tell from the traffic. Exit the freeway, and follow the RVs, campers, and wagons to the already-filled gravel parking lot. Glad I took the Miata- I was able to squeeze into a demispace left between two large pick-ups. It's 15 minutes before the gates are due to open and the parking lot is filled with fans streaming toward the entrance. Like most places in Northern California, the crowd was heavy with the halt, the lame, the blind, and the just plain weird. Lots of t-shirts proclaiming this crowd's fandom, and a palpable excitement in the air. "I've been waiting all YEAR for this!" "Oh, man, this is gonna be GREAT!" "Today's the DAY!"

At the entrance, I see people that have been camped out for hours, folding chairs, with umbrellas proof against the summer California sun. "Oh,yah, we've been here since 6 a.m. Wouldn't miss it for the world! Oh, look!" Behind the gates, the uniformed youngsters start assuming their positions, making ready. The clock ticks.

Nine o'clock.

The uniformed youngsters grin and open the gates. The crowd pours through with multilingual yells and whoops, and not a little pushing and shoving. That's OK, a few bumps and bruises are all part of the atmosphere, we're all happy, today's the day, the day, The Day.

Larry's Produce is open for the summer.



A dozen ears of corn, picked within the hour. Three pounds of the best cherries of the summer. A dozen fat, dark serrano chiles. Six perfectly ripe apricots (to get the best ones, I had to fight a midget lady with long gray hair, some disturbing piercings, and one mean-ass elbow). Four aromatic white peaches. A bunch of intense cilantro. A full flat of the best strawberries I've had this year, picture-perfect all the way to the bottom of the box. Two pounds of fava beans. A very large, ripe pineapple.

$14.62.

No meat?

I'm envious of the cherries. We've had cherries for several weeks here already but maybe 1 in a pound actually tastes like a cherry. The rest are just wet and slightly sweet.

Bad cherry crop for us this year off our little tree.

Of all the blossoms, only ~ 20 actually resulted in fruit set.

The birds pecked at a few to see if they were ripe yet (am I correct in recalling birds are colour-blind and don't see red very well? Not that this should be the case as the cherries were green without even a hint of pink!)

Then the heavy rain came down and a few more split

Then the wasps turned up to shred what the birds or rain had opened (and perhaps cracked a couple themselves).

I rescued 4 partially ripe cherries, which are on the window ledge in the kitchen to fully ripen.

Next year, if the crop is good, then the netting is going up

Not only can birds see color, they can see color better than us. They have 4-5 different types of cones in their eyes; we have three. They have about twice as many cones as humans. And they can see a color we can't: ultraviolet.