Today I checked out the local agriculture and was never further than 6 miles from our condo.


Lemons and Oranges

Grapes and Pepers

Dates (right) and Strawberies

What I did was drive to the end of a paved road, where it T'd into two dirt roads. I then turned around and headed back. All pictures in this post above and below were on two parallel streets heading back home in a four mile stretch. (remember to click pic to enlarge) A point to take note of is that it is January 17th and only the grapes and dates were not producing. Frankly, I didn't know that citrus produced fruit in the dead of winter (even here).

The Coachella Valley (home of Palm Springs, Desert Hot Springs, Rancho Mirage, La Quinta, Cathedral City, Indian Wells, Indio, and Coachella) is the top of a valley that widens southward into the Imperial Valley. The entire valley produces an astounding amount of crops yearly and is famous for it's date production.

All of this farming creates a need for cheap labor and it used to work pretty well when the Mexicans were bused up during harvesting seasons and were provided temporary housing and then returned home to Mexico. But Mexico, being what it is now days (read the newspapers), the Mexican workers prefer not to go home and many didn't come here legally to begin with. So here we are back at the Southern California conundrum, trying to balance need with fiscal and social reality. (obviously above the heads of our politicians.)



Strawberry fields forever.

(NOT)

So with this labor problem comes associated problems which produce glaring contrasts.



The above slum type housing (found in many rural areas) is nearly across the street from......



Enough for today. Bye for now.