So last week I had the good fortune to head West to California. It was pretty much for research planning and Retail Partner meeting. It was warm, but it was still winter and not much crop growth at the time. But of course there is still plenty of cool stuff to take pictures of. Poor agronomist JW who was driving me around. I made him stop so I could take pictures. I mean I have a demanding blog audience after all.
California has been fortunate to have ample rain to make up for years of drought. But water is always a source of debate. There were a number of signs like this along the roads of the San Joaquin valley. If asked, I would vote for growing food.
Here is a research place where we stopped. I was told that there had not been snow pack in these Sierra Nevada mountains for some time. Well that's good.
So here's something that I thought was very unusual. It's near Lost Hills, just off the 5 (hey that's how they talk in CA, just off Interstate 5 that is) heading West. Sorry, no known towns for reference. But it's a big oil field. There are hundreds of oil wells, some only a few feet apart. I looked on Google Maps and it goes several miles North and South from here. Yay for oil. I like to drive after all.
There were patches all over the place as we drove West towards San Luis Obispo. JW said in previous years all was brown. I like this better.
My flight home took me to Seattle, and as some airports do to promote culture, they had some artsy board of sayings about flowers. Guess which one made my hair, that that I have, stand up? I think AA Milne let Winnie the Pooh bite him in the head once too often. As a former Weed Scientist, I will never equate weeds with flowers. And I don't care to know them at all! I agree with those that say All Weeds Must Die!
This being California, there were vineyards everywhere. They were all pruned and ready for new growth. I wish them success, and much AgroLiquid as well.
Drove past this vineyard where they had sheep grazing the grass in between the grape rows. Beats mowing I guess.
One nice thing about California is that the Pacific Ocean is near by. Well if you drive to it that is. Here is sunset as seen from Pismo Beach, just South of San Luis Obispo where we had research meetings.
Well that was fun. But wait, there's more. You can't cram a whole week in California into a single blog post. Y'all come back now. Ya hear. (OK everyone should know what famous Californians said that.)
