Epitaph for a Peach (10 page)

My imagination runs rampant with fears: a just-before-harvest freak storm or an attack of a killer monster worm. I succumb to a type of humility, a fragile balance between the controlled and uncontrolled. I conclude, “We farmers do not rule over our lands.”

Farmers fool themselves when they talk about taking land from the wild. Some believe they can outwit nature and grow a lush vineyard in poor soils and on land where vines don't belong. But I sense that farming is only a temporary claim on a piece of earth, not a right; farmers borrow the land from nature to squeeze out a living.

With each generation we may be losing that sense of “claiming the land.” Armed with our machinery and with youthful confidence, we've never felt nature beat us. In the end, though, nature has a way of keeping us in our place by a thunderstorm on our table grapes, a heat wave that burns the peaches, or showers that fall on unprotected grapes trying to dry into raisins. We are humbled.

 

W
HEN MY WALKS
take me to Dad's “hill,” I am reminded of our family's claim to that ten acres of land and how nature almost broke a farmer's will. The hill was a rise on the landscape, a mound of dirt with a hidden layer of hardpan a few feet beneath it. The original vines on this patch of land were weak, their frail root systems stunted by the hardpan and poor drainage. The land could not support life, so large areas were not planted and stood barren. But it was the hill and the hardpan that made this farm affordable and attractive to a young man with little cash and a hunger to work the land.

Hardpan is missing from the rock charts of a regular geology lesson. It is a compacted layer of clay and minerals, impervious to roots, more stone than anything else. Farmers swear hardpan was created to break their backs and protect the hills of the San Joaquin Valley from vineyards and orchards, nature's revenge against man's tillage. In the Northeast, farmers made their fences out of fieldstones. In Del Rey they used hardpan.

Dad's hill was a solid hardpan layer with a thin but rich skin of topsoil. In order to farm this land, tons and tons of rocks had to be hauled away and disposed of. The hill had to be leveled, making a flat plateau for irrigating crops. Dad first called in a pair of giant Caterpillar tractors, which rumbled across his land. They ripped out the meager vines that had been trying for decades to gain a foothold in the rock. The weak plants resembled coastal Monterey pines clinging to a sea cliff embankment. The vineyard looked aesthetically powerful, the vines tenaciously defying nature and surviving the challenge, but they produced few if any grapes.

The thundering machines tossed the vines aside and attacked the hardpan. It was man versus rock, and the rocks grudgingly gave up ground. The hill was partially leveled, flattened, and ripped, but it teemed with huge blocks of hardpan, like a pot of chili teeming with beans, more beans than beef, more hardpan than soil.

So Dad spent his fall, winter, spring, and summer clearing his field, lifting the chunks of rock one by one, lugging them away, and tossing them onto his old flatbed truck, day after day, truckload after truckload. Some of the hardpan was stubborn, huge plates of rock, thousands of pounds lodged beneath other chunks. His main weapons were a strong back, a fierce hunger to farm that hill, and dynamite.

Mom wasn't fond of the dynamite. With each explosion she shook from the blasting noise and fear for her husband's safety. The dynamite blew apart the plates, making a sea of smaller pieces that could be lifted and dragged to the truck. Day after day, truckload after truckload.

Dad lost a year of planting, refusing to plant vines in the rocky soil of that field. Once all the surface rocks were cleared he called back the Caterpillars and ripped the earth again. A huge shank sliced the ground, tearing at hidden layers of hardpan, breaking the rock's domain. His formerly clean field disappeared. New chunks of hardpan surfaced and blanketed the land, popping up in the earth as if they floated on water in the wake of the Caterpillars. The mission began again, lugging and tossing. But this time he used less dynamite and the rocks were smaller, averaging only a few pounds each. Dad went through fewer pairs of gloves this second round, too, and a sense of progress was felt.

Now a healthy, strong vineyard stands on the hill. The vines are vigorous, the roots penetrating and secure. Occasionally, while Dad disks or cultivates, a chunk of hardpan surfaces. He stops the tractor and carries the rock to the end of the row, where a small collection stands.

“They seem to keep growing,” he explains. “But so do the vines. So do the vines.”

I'll consider myself a better farmer when I have a clearer sense of history about a place, when I understand the knowledge of a farm's hills and the sweat and blood left behind. Until then I'm just managing a piece of dirt and probably still foolishly believing I rule the earth.

 

M
Y FARM WALKS
slow as I sense the surrounding life: the lush green canopy of peaches and the scent of ripening fruit and the soft matting of lavish cover crop underfoot. My farm's cornucopia is overflowing with insect and spider families that seem ubiquitous. The farm seems out of control, and suddenly I'm amazed I can even harvest a crop. To be truthful, I know very little about how a peach actually grows. I do a few things out in the fields and
voilà!
a peach. Nature must be on my side, I'm lucky to get a crop in year after year.

I get superstitious in late summer. With harvest so close I try not to do things out of the ordinary. I talk out loud a lot, as if I'm bargaining with nature. I'll ask the weather to cooperate, the worms to hold off a few weeks, the trees to pump up the fruit a little bigger this year, the vines to avoid water stress until after harvest. I feel grateful.

Most people think farmers give thanks after harvest, like the Pilgrims. I believe right before harvest, when the farm is the most vulnerable and exposed, we become the most grateful. I'm humbled to realize in a few hours or days an entire crop can be lost. My gratitude becomes an act of submission as well as a type of freedom. I'm guided by an absolute faith in nature during the final hours preceding harvest. Instead of problems to solve, I can work only in awe of the natural mystery of farming.

Baachan Walks

She may appear at any time and place, most often late in the day, during an evening walk by myself or with my family. My senses play tricks with my imagination. A tree casts an odd shadow, and out of the corner of my eye I think I see someone. Or the grape leaves rustle and I believe I hear the sound of footsteps. I imagine someone escorting me, and for a second I envision Baachan walking the farm.

I remember Baachan. As if walking against the wind, she would slouch forward and plod along the earthen trail. Baachan often sang to herself, more of a chant than a song, childlike in its melody.

“Pen, pen, pen
…
po, po, po,
…
pen, pen, po, po.”

Her frail eighty-year-old legs would shuffle through the soft dirt, creating puffs of dust that marked her trail. She'd clasp her hands behind her, shoulders round, and droop toward the earth, her tiny frame silhouetted against a brilliant orange setting sun.

I can picture her trudging through the fields she worked but never owned. Yet I believe that despite a life of poverty and the crushing upheaval of the World War II relocation, in her old age she found peace during those farm walks, covering familiar territory and finding a place where she belonged.

Finding a Home

In the early morning sunrise, I stand out on the porch. Despite the heat of summer, a chill greets me as the sun peeks over the Sierras, but the coolness quickly retreats with the heat of the first rays. I can hear a neighbor's tractor and his workers beginning their day. I'm excited and relieved that harvest will soon begin. Is this what it's like to start labor and birth? Impatient to end the nine-month ordeal, yet anxious about beginning a new life as a parent, knowing nothing may ever be the same?

With the aroma of ripening fruit at harvest, my senses detect a subtle fragrance lingering in the air, much like the delicate perfume of a passing woman, tantalizing the imagination long after she has departed.

A week earlier the fragrance caught my attention. I stopped to examine peaches from the outside trees, which ripen before the rest of the field because of their extra helping of unfiltered sunlight. I squeeze one with an amber hue. It has a slight give, telling me it is almost ready and that the majority of the field will soon follow. Unable to resist the scent, I pick and bite a crunchy peach. Immediately the taste jumps out and dances on my tongue. This is why I work to save this peach: Sun Crests have flavor!

As the day unfolds, temperatures rocket into the 90s, then even higher. Plants wilt as the thermometer pushes near 100. Heat rises off the earth's surface in visible ripples. Radio talk shows advertise contests, listeners guessing which day we will break 100. I do my best to remain cool, knowing dozens of 100-degree days will arrive and scorch the valley. But peaches love the dry heat. They gulp water, double in size, and break color with tinges of red showing like a blush. Harvest is near.

When I walk through my fields of Sun Crest, adrenaline starts to flow. Harvesttime approaches with excitement and the spirit of a chase. I have succeeded in finding a new way to grow these peaches; now my quest remains—to find a home for them.

I devise two strategies. First I will personally choose the best fruit and ship it to specialty markets, where buyers are willing to pay for the quality. The second strategy rests with a new baby food company I hear about from some farmer friends. This company's buyer claims to want my peaches. I begin both with a farmer's skepticism.

Peaches are picked in “rounds,” beginning at the top of the tree, where the fruit ripens first. Pickers work their way down a tree with each round. Three to four times we will enter a field, glean the best, and leave the rest to mature and grow. It may take up to two weeks to complete the harvest. The first round produces some of the best fruit, though it's expensive for a large crew to harvest them. Most of a laborer's time is spent moving from branch to branch and tree to tree, searching for the ripe fruit. Yet these first gems will work well for a small-scale premium fruit round. I make plans to renew the family packing operation.

Dad and I wake early and start the harvest. We pick the first buckets slowly, not used to being so selective. We have different picking styles. Color is not necessarily the best indicator for maturity, even though most people judge produce solely with their eyes. Dad uses a combination of color and feel he can't exactly describe to me. I use a gentle squeeze method: if the fruit gives a little, then it's ripe. It reminds me of working with clay and ceramics, where you develop a tactile sense as you pull the clay into a cylinder and push it out into a shape, a vessel. I explain my method to Dad and he listens patiently as he picks, continuing with the style he's developed from years of work in the fields. I notice he has almost twice as many buckets picked as I do. His method takes into account the cost-of-time factor, something the clay artist in me didn't consider.

By midmorning I spy Mom walking over to the shed. She slips into her old role of head packer. I bring peaches to the shed and she proceeds to separate them by size and pack them into boxes. I have to slow her down and explain that I'm trying to market these fruits for very particular buyers.

“Only the very, very best,” I caution. “The slightest defect is a cull. Remember, people are willing to pay good money for these jewels.”

She nods, but I know she'll try to cheat. Old habits are hard to break.

I understand her thinking. Often the slightly misshapen or unevenly colored peaches are still wonderful. When we packed our own fruit years ago, our goal was to produce a good quality box, but no better than we had to because buyers were not going to reward us for anything extra special. Consumers seem to shop with an attitude of spending as little as possible on food. “Good enough” is the rule. But this specialty market is for a new kind of consumer, exclusive buyers willing to spend money for the best.

Later Marcy and the kids come out to join us. For a moment we step back in time and become that farm family I remember. The grown-ups chat as we work and the kids play in the dirt. The dog, Jake, lies at my feet while I sort the peaches. Mom sighs at seeing the wonderful fruits being culled and decides to set them aside for neighbors. In the afternoon she'll make her rounds, giving away delicious peaches and visiting friends she hasn't seen in months. Marcy will spend the rest of the day canning and making jam with these fruits, trying to capture the flavor and preserve the taste for cold winter mornings. The scene might be from a Norman Rockwell painting, except with a Japanese American farming family.

I call my specialty fruits “dessert peaches.” Some will be used by chefs featuring seasonal and regional cuisines for their summer desserts. Others are to go to a southern California hotel that plans to leave peaches instead of chocolates for their patrons when the beds are turned down in the evenings. I joke to Marcy that these peaches are bound for no one we know. She quips that our goal may be to grow peaches none of our friends can afford.

We ship a couple of hundred boxes. I locate another buyer, a high-quality produce store in Berkeley. The problem with these specialty markets is that none of them can handle large quantities, and there's no one to take the rest of my Sun Crests. Exclusive shoppers may love the fruit, and my family certainly enjoys these few days of nostalgic home packing, but eighty tons of Sun Crest continue to ripen.

Peach Harvest

On the evening before we start the harvest, the orchard bouquet is thick and ubiquitous. We've begun a family ritual, Marcy and I each drive a tractor and bin trailer out to the fields, preparing for the next day's harvest. We each have a child in our lap, and fifty feet from the orchard they too can recognize the scent. It excites all of us, and we salivate in anticipation of plucking juicy treasures from the trees.

We park the trailers in the rows and climb off for our treat. A cloud of peach perfume envelops us as we each silently devour a peach. For our second helping we're more patient and selective. I'll search out some of the overripe ones I've been eyeing each time I've passed the field. These peaches sit fully exposed to the sun or on a lone corner tree that has always ripened first. The ground is a little different under that tree, a bit more sandy, and three sides are exposed to the summer heat. The family gathers as I reach up and pick a gushy entree for each of us.

The juice dribbles off our chins, we suck out the meat and smile with a primeval grin. I revert to childish behavior and allow the flesh to dangle from my teeth.

Niki screams “Gross!” and then sinks her teeth into a peach, trying to imitate her father.

Korio can't understand our words but continues to stuff himself. More meat leaks onto his shirt than down his throat. He pauses as we all stare at him, then continues with a grin half hidden by the candylike pulp. We feast and celebrate the beginning of harvest.

 

T
HIS SUMMER
I find new hope in a company that buys organic fruit in large quantities. My peaches will become organic baby food.

A farmer friend told me about them. He has been supplying them for years, putting up with their late payments. The baby food company has grown quickly, become better established, and is looking for new growers.

Being a father, I understand parental concern for the diet of infants. My organic certification ensures against harmful chemicals or residues. I can also imagine infants championing the cause of those farmers who work with, not against, nature. I grin at the idea of a nation of babies underwriting a new farming alternative.

I believe in the value of organic baby food. Witnessing the birth of my children, holding their tiny, squirming bodies, was a real turning point in my life. My children provide me with perspective. I do not farm solely to make money but rather with the hope of contributing something to them and to the world. The thought of my peaches feeding infants and toddlers adds to my satisfaction. This summer will be a special harvest.

Babies and meals, a time we care about our foods, foods as a part of life. This is how the harvest begins, my fields suddenly connected to kitchens and family dinner tables. I can envision my peaches as part of these scenes, part of these homes. The palates of babies could save my Sun Crests.

 

I
N YEARS PAST,
I've been punished for picking ripe fruit for the fresh market. My Sun Crests, of course, don't keep well beyond a week and can't compete with other, newer varieties bred for their color and long shelf life. Marketing and distribution systems just aren't set up for extremely ripe peaches.

Some recently released varieties must be the salesman's ultimate dream. They're so red and dark they look ripe all the time, even while green on the tree and immature inside. But I fear the fresh fruit industry is shooting itself in the foot, with farmers planting varieties so red we can't tell if they're ripe until a consumer bites into one to find a terrible-tasting fruit. Even pickers often can't distinguish between ones ready for harvest and those that are bitter and need another week on the tree. Instead of a dream fruit, we may be creating a monster.

When the workers arrive that first harvest morning, I tell them to harvest only the ripe fruits that have a red-yellow color. I wish I could speak better Spanish. I want to tell them, Pick the fruit with the rich amber glow of harvesttime.

The workers are not used to working with such mature fruit. Normal harvests are carried out before the fruit softens. They start to discard all the soft ones, dropping them on the ground. I plead with them to save those peaches. This year's harvest can be riper, I explain, nearly overripe and bursting with natural flavor. They look at me oddly as I explain that the gushy ones are the best. I offer them bites of a ripe peach, and they have to lean over before the juice oozes down their faces. They grin, and I sense we now understand each other.

Ordinarily when I pick for the fresh peach market, I haul the fruit to a local packing shed. But this year's Sun Crests need to be transported to a processing plant, where they will be pureed. Large transport trucks will pick them up and haul them away. Every driver gets lost trying to find my farm.

“Why don't you have your name and address on the roadside? You need a big sign,” one protests. I look at the map I sent him, lying on the truck seat, crumpled and torn. Somehow I doubt he'd understand that the last thing I want is to put a big sign out on the road.

The driver cusses and swears he'll never come out to my place again. I quickly step away from his rig. I imagine being chased by a wild truck driver carrying out his ultimate revenge on farmers with no roadside address numbers. The trucker's face is beet red from the 100-degree heat, and I suggest some cool water would be refreshing. As he dips his entire head under the garden hose and the blood drains from his complexion, I remember why we have no sign on the roadside. I enjoy the seclusion. I can hide on my farm.

 

T
HIS SEASON, BECAUSE
my peaches are destined for infants, I acquire a different type of pride in my work because it's done “for the babies.” Every day during our harvest, my own two-year-old taste-tests the peaches. I know they've passed his inspection when the front of his shirt is stained pink. I take off his shirt, and Jake licks the juice off my son's face and chest. When Korio giggles and Jake wags his tail, I know these peaches are ripe and ready.

I feel a wonderful sense of fulfillment. But I have only a single-year contract with the baby food company, and I remind myself that next year will probably be very different. I am excited about collaborating with them and write to the company about my hope for a long-term contract or a profit-sharing plan. My letter is referred to another department in another state, and later it's returned with a handwritten
no
jotted next to each of my ideas.

But I still enjoy the moment. My homeless peaches have found shelter for this season.

Harvest Lessons

Every summer, harvests of the past rush through my thoughts. I begin to sound old, recalling my childhood summers and workdays that become hotter and harder every time I retell the stories to my children. I recall the summer of '72, my last farm harvest before college, and my burning desire to escape the farm. I remember the summers spent hauling fruit in from the fields with my brother. We'd drive a tractor and stop where the pickers had stacked wooden boxes full of peaches. We'd each take a side and hoist the crates onto a wagon, hundreds of boxes a day. I don't know why we called this work “swamping”—maybe because the heat and grasses and damp earth all combined to feel like a swamp. The work battered our young bodies. We'd take turns putting our heads under the water faucet at home, trying to cool off and wash away the exhaustion of the summer.

I clearly remember the first time I drove the big truck to haul bins full of fruit to a packing shed miles away. Dad sat next to me, teaching a nervous son how to shift the gears of the Chevy flatbed, sharing his techniques and tricks about how to handle a ten-ton load sitting less than three feet behind you. Later I'd laugh about how anxious I was and how perspiration dotted my forehead and my palms made the steering wheel grimy.