Epitaph for a Peach (11 page)

My heart raced, the adrenaline tingled my nerves, my eyes couldn't stay focused on the road and, instead, darted in every direction. There seemed to be so many details to monitor: shifting through eight gear changes; reclutching and adjusting to a hi-low dual rear axle; listening and trying to remember Dad's few words of advice, like “Never hit the brakes.” As we neared the first stop sign I understood Dad's warning about braking. The weight of the load makes the truck into a giant rolling snowball. Once we built up speed (grinding through eight gears), man and machine catapulted down the road. I had to ease into the brakes, slowing into a gentle roll. I had to learn a new way to stop.

I cannot recall the precise year—it was sometime after college—when I first hinted to Dad that I might want to farm. I had asked him how I could help with the harvest, so he approached me about handling the workers. It didn't sound complicated. I'd call in the crew to pick the fruit, monitor their work, and then make sure they were paid. But it was my first experience with supervising people, and I found myself unprepared to be promoted to the ranks of management. Dad gave his just-out-of-college liberal son his ultimate lesson: a welcome-to-the-real-world out in the fields, with plenty of opportunities to fail.

I can't recall another summer filled with as much anger and frustration. I became responsible for selecting the day to start picking, determining when the fruit was ripe, and calling in a twenty-man crew. Equipment had to be prepared, bin trailers and tractors readied. After one morning with workers being paid to just stand around as I pleaded with a tractor to start, I learned a new lesson in business management. Half the work is setting up. Once you call in a crew, their hundred-dollars-an-hour meter starts running. Every minute they're in your field costs you. Mistakes become expensive.

I also had to communicate how I wanted the workers to pick. A price was attached to every instruction. If they had to search for just the ripest peaches, costs rose dramatically. Some workers understood my instructions only after I showed them what I wanted. Even then, each worker maintained his individuality and picked in his own style. I learned the lesson of splitting the difference and meeting them halfway. Perfection in farming is unrealistic, be it in nature or human nature.

That summer I learned to live with my mistakes and, perhaps just as important, to feel good about the accomplishments. As the weeks passed I grew more proficient, and Dad monitored my work less and less, his quiet way of giving praise. Then he began asking me what work
I'd
like done. A rite of passage had occurred. I was a real farmer.

I am amazed we make it to harvest. When I think of the many things that can go wrong, I'm grateful for
any
edible fruit. Even with the first picking round under way, I fear that unseen worms are munching my peaches or fungi and bacteria are attacking them like alien invaders. I check the first bins warily, searching for defects. A farmer's pessimism surfaces at harvest, as eyes drift toward the blemishes.

A type of humility marks a real farmer. Those of us who battle nature all year must ultimately accept the hand we're dealt. We're cautious even at harvest, privately smiling when we discover that the cards we hold may be OK, inwardly grateful that there hasn't been a disaster. We hear of someone else with bad luck: a farm caught under a hailstorm, a plum orchard that bore no crop, a vineyard with a mildew outbreak. Success is relative. We pick our fruit and whisper to ourselves, “It could have been worse.”

Bitter harvests of the past do not easily fade from memory. Too often I have left fruit on the trees when the market price did not cover the expense of picking. Other years, I harvested solely to reduce losses, trying to recoup expenses already invested in the ripe, juicy peaches. I have also harvested knowing I will lose money.

A city cousin asks, “If the margins are so close, why even pick at all?” He uses a cliché: “Cut your losses.”

My cousin cannot comprehend the emotions that ripen with my fruit. At harvesttime I go public. My ego is peddled with my peaches. I risk rejection and am unwilling to admit that no one wants my fruits. Also, because my work is where I live, I pass an unpicked orchard daily. The drive is painful. I sense more than failure, I question my own worth. So sometimes I'll harvest anyway, ignoring the cost and refusing to believe that my work is without value. I'll pick just to clean up an orchard, to get the crop out of sight. With each bad harvest the farmer dies a little.

Where Good Peaches Come From

Where do all these peaches come from? Surely the truckloads of compost I applied last year do not add up to eighty tons of peaches this year. I begin to total all the ingredients in a juicy peach—water, some pest treatments, the labor of a dozen workers, my own time and management skills—and I still can't equate them with a luscious harvest. Simple linear formulas do not apply in farming. I stumble when I try to analyze the equation for a successful crop, reducing needs into inputs like nitrogen, moisture, and a few sprays. I discover that the process is much more complex. A farmer friend agrees: “Good peaches are more than just dirt, manure, and ditch water.”

Reaping a good harvest depends on a marriage of farmer and farm, but the output of a healthy farm extends beyond the individual. I recall many conversations with neighbors as we experiment and try new methods. At times we swap stories and the results of our trials, at others we simply offer encouragement.

I alone cannot claim credit for my peaches. I think of my dad, for he planted this orchard. Peering into the past I also see my grandparents, who journeyed to America, and the generations of farmers in Japan that compose the Masumoto family.

But if I let my imagination run too wild, this familial debt of gratitude can quickly bankrupt me. A good harvest needs to be a time for celebration, not guilt. I remember an old farmer telling me to enjoy the harvest and explaining, “Some farmers simply have more luck than others,” then winking at my perplexed expression.

And I underestimate the genius of nature. For months I live and work in the midst of magic, such as the simple power of sunlight and the transformation it causes in plants. Science may call it photosynthesis, transforming light into energy. I call it a gift from nature. My best term to describe this magic is
synergism,
the combining of individual parts to create something greater than the whole. The concept seems baffling. I've been conditioned not to expect something for nothing; everything supposedly has a price. Nature shortchanges herself of recognition by providing us with more than we put in.

My definition of synergism also includes the battles against weeds and pests, for they too integrate into the magic of a good harvest. Are Bermuda grass and peach twig borers part of a juicy peach? The thought challenges my reasoning. It's easier to think in terms of competition or compromise, not a collaborative effort of seemingly chaotic forces.

I ask a scientist, “What makes a good peach?”

He responds with a discussion that focuses on inputs and farming practices, as if a bountiful harvest can be accomplished by technology alone.

He stops talking when I suggest, “I would like to think the farmer also has something to do with it.”

Obon

My Sun Crest harvest corresponds with the season for Obon. Obon is an annual Japanese festival with folk dancing in the streets, a ritual to honor family. Through lively and colorful dance, we perpetuate our ancestors in memory and display gratitude to them. Originating from a blend of folk culture and Buddhist beliefs, Obon celebrates the idea that ancestors return briefly to visit the living, even if only in memory and symbols. Colorful lanterns light the way for spirits to return home, and the dance symbolizes the joy of this spiritual reunion.

At an Obon, colorful kimonos or
yukata
flash as dancers spin, turn, and dip, their movements free and relaxed.
Kachi-kachi
crack together like castanets and the
taiko
drums beat a rhythm of folk songs. Participants dance in a huge circle. Spectators are encouraged to join, their sometimes rough gestures adding a festive element. Music echoes over the Buddhist church grounds, a magical blend of Japanese song and dance against the backdrop of a summer evening.

It's a fusion of motion and spirit. An illusion is created—the entire community dances, including the blurred image of a great-grandfather or -grandmother dancing as he or she once may have done. Obon is a time of celebration and rejoicing.

The Issei brought Obon with them to America. For these struggling pioneers, toiling for long hours and low pay in the vineyards and orchards of California, Obon broke the monotony, re-creating a slice of homeland in the San Joaquin Valley. For the Nisei it provided a grand opportunity to meet other Japanese farm kids, or, as a Nisei woman explained, “one of the few times for the boys to visit with the girls.” Once, dozens of Japanese American communities in small towns throughout the valley held their own Obon. Now the number is reduced, but the celebration of history is still renewed annually with a new generation of dancers.

I'm transported back into this history during the Obon. I can recall wandering amid the dancers as an infant, anticipating my summer treat of a shaved-ice
azuki
—sweetened Japanese red beans in syrup over ice chips. As a teenager I would visit with other farm kids, finding mutual comfort as we compared notes of long workdays on our farms and then enjoyed a summer evening of street dancing. On the day of the Obon, our family used to quit picking fruit early. We'd escape briefly from work to celebrate the harvest, Sun Crest and Obon joined together in mutual celebration.

Even now, between the lively music and the spinning and whirling dancers, I sometimes imagine I can see the ghosts of my grandmother and grandfather. They come to dance with me and my children.

Dance with Nature

“Diversify” remains the golden rule for small farms. We assume a defensive posture and protect ourselves against marginal years by raising more than one crop. For my father, this meant growing both peaches and grapes. In his later years, he took it a step further. The majority of our grapes would still be dried into raisins, but he also signed a contract for some to be crushed for juice and wine. He grew weary of battling weather hostile to raisin drying. At least grapes for juice don't mind an occasional September rain.

I inherit his cautious attitude and doom myself to a life of cutting losses instead of maximizing profits. But I can see why the golden rule survives. Nature weeds out speculators who expect quick profits from farming. Some years my peaches support the grapes and in other years the opposite. The few times both have sold well call for celebration; the times both sour make me happy I can start each year anew.

I dance with nature and we seem to constantly be switching leads. Huge rewards may not await me, but perhaps it's the music and motion that's important. I've survived at farming for a decade and now know diversity results in this: at the end of each song, I still have hope.

Raisins, a Family Affair

At the end of every summer, when it's time to harvest the raisins, I step back in time. Making raisins follows old rituals begun at the turn of the century. The industrial revolution and the miracles of technology have bypassed raisin vineyards. Green grapes are still picked in early September and spread out on trays that lie directly on the earth, exposed to the elements. A waiting game commences, and, as they have for generations, farmers pray for pale blue skies and hot days. Eyes turn to the west, scanning the horizon for approaching storms. Within twenty days the sun dries the grapes into dark, sweet raisins, a simple and natural process done entirely without equipment, machinery, or technology. I still make raisins in essentially the same way that my dad and his dad did.

Since the first raisin crop in the late 1800s, the harvest has undergone only one major change. The two-by-three-foot trays used to be made of wood; today most everyone uses trays of paper. Wooden trays worked well for decades, their flat wide panels strong and reusable, and the grapes dried quickly and cleanly. But the bulky wooden trays required tremendous amounts of hand labor, as they were passed out into the fields, collected at the end of the drying season, and stored for next year. Because an average acre produces between a ton and two tons of raisins and uses from five hundred to a thousand trays for each acre, even a small farm requires tens of thousands of trays. The introduction of paper trays was driven by convenience and led to huge stacks of abandoned wooden ones.

Family has always played a role in making raisins. Local rural districts used to delay the start of the school year to allow families to pick grapes. Children understood that a good harvest meant new school clothes. Like a pilgrimage, aunts, uncles, and cousins returned to the old home place to help with the harvest. Farmers enjoyed the advantages of their large extended families.

Our family used to work together as a team. Armed with their knives, Dad and Mom slashed away at the hanging bunches, dropping them into a large grape pan shaped like a deep pie dish. We kids crawled on our knees on smooth packed earth already warming in the hot summer sun. Our job was to lay out trays between the rows. Then, after my folks would dump their pans of grapes, we'd spread them into an even layer on each tray.

Now mostly men harvest the raisins. Occasionally, though, the tradition of families and raisin picking continues (despite labor laws prohibiting children from working). Families hungry for work will sneak their children into the fields, with parents picking and children spreading the grapes. Later the younger children will spend the afternoon napping under a vine.

After grapes are picked and spread, a marathon wait begins that tests my patience. Slowly the green grapes wither, and a light purple hue is reflected from the dehydrating berries. I grow anxious. Eventually the top side of the bunch dries.

Now each trayful is turned or flipped over. Two workers, one at each end of a tray, bend over, place an empty tray on top of the partially dried grapes, and, with good timing and a quick flip, turn the entire tray. Good turning teams work quickly and smoothly, their teamwork marked by a steady, unbroken rhythm. Bad teams are sloppy: the raisins fly and trays are crumpled and twisted, with grapes resting in piles instead of making even layers. Some people can work alone, using fast hands, good timing, and a steady cadence.

Finally the grapes become raisins, dark and meaty, the sun a wonderfully inexpensive dehydrator. Trays are then rolled like a cigarette, or with a few folds, a biscuit roll is created, the raisins wrapped safely inside. Teams then begin boxing by dumping the raisins out of the rolls into boxes or bins.

When I was a child, my family worked as a team to box the raisins. I drove the tractor, pulling a wagon between the vine rows. My parents picked up the raisin rolls and dumped them into wooden boxes destined for processing plants like Sun Maid or Del Monte. Trailing the wagon, my brother and sister collected the used paper trays and burned them in small piles.

Sun-drying raisins is one of the few practices no one has found a way to do better, and I hope, for the sake of the family raisin farmer, that they never do.

Raisins and family. The relationship is tested when an advancing rainstorm threatens to rot a drying raisin crop or a scorching summer heat of 105 degrees bakes grapes into “beans.” In a few crucial hours, a family must race to roll up trays before the crop gets wet or too dry, trying to protect the year's investment of labor. We work side by side and familial bonds are forged, everyone sensing the panic. We know that with each minute another few trays can be salvaged.

Even in those families where the children have left the farm, a few will still come home at harvesttime to help their parents. Others pay extra attention to the weather in September, noticing when a southern storm tracks northward from Baja California or a cold front drops from Alaska into the Central Valley. A rained-out backyard barbecue or tee-off time means more than just a ruined afternoon for adult children of raisin farmers. Calling from distant homes, they act like outposts, warning of approaching fronts in San Diego, Los Angeles, or San Francisco.

An older generation of retired raisin farmers also still retains a keen interest in the annual harvest. I knew of an old Japanese man who, his wife dead, refused to live with his children, not wanting to burden anyone, and stayed on in the family home. But every night during the raisin harvest he'd phone each of his four sons to ask, “How are the raisins?” He still wanted to be involved, to lend moral support. He'd end his conversations with, “Don't work too hard.”

One of the sons explained. “I don't mind the calls. It's important when you're old to keep your mind active. It's OK for Dad to worry about the raisins a little.”

September Is Not to Be Trusted

An old-timer says, “September is not to be trusted.” He makes raisins and has seen the weather in September take away his year of labor in a single storm. He has fruit trees too and understands how one crop can save another. I had witnessed several disastrous rains while growing up, but only late in my last year of college, when I returned to help my dad on the farm, did I understand what the neighbor meant.

Early one morning I first heard the soft rhythm of morning rain and jumped out of bed to the window. “Damn.” Dad's entire crop of grapes lay unprotected on the ground. They needed another week of sun to dry. I turned, hesitated, and said, “Dad, you know it's—”

“I know,” he said.

Puddles began to appear in the rows. Fed by clouds, they slowly advanced toward the grape trays. Raisins can tolerate a light rain, but this time, with constant long showers, a year's work began to rot. The stench would soon fill the countryside.

“How bad do you think they are?” I asked.

“We'll see when it stops,” Dad answered.

It rained more than an inch. The paper trays seemed to melt, saturated with water. The lower third of each tray became submerged with loose grapes floating in the pools that had formed. I grew restless, hating the sound of the rain.

Dad occasionally glanced out the window, pretending to look for the newspaper or the mail. He spoke little, saying nothing about the harvest lying outside. He spent the day reading old issues of
Popular Mechanics
and some farm magazines. The newspaper had been accidentally thrown into a puddle. “Son of a bitch,” he said, returning with the drenched sheets. “At least I want my paper dry.”

The rains continued. Dad wrestled with the soaked newspaper, peeling the pages apart and spreading them over chairs to dry. A few years before it had rained like this, over two inches in twenty-four hours. We had tried to salvage the harvest, working with each bunch, picking away the mold on each grape. For a few days, the sun had appeared and the ground began to dry; we made a crude dehydrator to speed the process. Then another storm and another inch. Saying he couldn't stand the sight of the rot, Dad had hooked up the tractor and in a single day disked under the entire crop.

This time rain ended the next day. We walked outside, dodging the deeper puddles. I wanted to hope, to try and save something. Dad bent over a tray, picked up a bunch, and shook off the water. The skins of the grapes, half raisins by now, had already decayed into a yellowish brown. As Dad ran his hand over the bunch, the skins broke and the meat of the grapes oozed onto his finger.

He carefully replaced the bunch, rose, and said, “I'm not going to spend the next couple of months crawling around on my knees. Not for this crap.” He turned toward the shed, grabbed his shovel, and left for a walk through his fields.

Diary of a Raisin Harvest

LATE AUGUST
.

Workers scarce and in demand. Harvest delayed. I may not be able to pick for weeks. From the porch I watch the grapes grow heavy. Some of the berries are turning amber; swollen with juice, they are ready to be picked. I rationalize that by delaying harvest, sugars can increase even more and each bunch will gain in weight. They estimate one point of Brix—a measure of sweetness—gained each week. Translation: about a 5 percent weight gain. Greed helps justify the delay in harvest.

I think about my Sun Crest peaches and their successful year. But on a farm, everything becomes connected and interwoven. Next year a good grape crop may be what I need in order to keep the peaches, a successful raisin harvest may allow for many more peach harvests in the future. Suddenly peaches and the late summer raisin weather are related more than ever. I can no longer ignore thoughts about September rains.

Without workers, I have little choice but to gamble and wait. Instead I'll watch the grapes growing fat. I explain my strategy to Dad. He nods. He understands how I feel about another uncontrolled force in this farming game. He consoles me by saying, “You never know, maybe we can count on the weather in September.” We both know he is lying.

You can't trust the weather. Even during my few years of farming, I have witnessed four devastating years where thousands and thousands of trays lay vulnerable to the clouds marching in from the Pacific. As a child I remember watching my parents as they stared at the rain pounding their harvest and their dreams. Now I'm the adult with the unprotected harvest, my family and our dreams threatened.

SEPTEMBER
8
TH
.

Still waiting for workers, feeling helpless. I'm picking a few rows myself, anxious to have something to show for the last two weeks. I made the fatal mistake of selecting a long row. There's an unwritten custom in grape picking: once you start a row, you finish it, part of a stake you make on territory when you lay down those initial few trays from the first vines. The work, though, is cathartic. I sweat out some of my anxiety and tension and return home for breaks, too thirsty and dirty to worry about fields without workers. But the remedy is short-lived. Walking past unpicked grapes gnaws at my nerves, my stomach muscles tighten.

In the evenings I phone uncles, cousins, and neighbors. They all say the same: “Labor's tight and the picking slow.” The usual workers who come from Mexico for the harvest have gone someplace else. Perhaps crops in the Northwest? Texas? We depend on labor from Mexico, part of a seasonal flow of men and families. Many come here for the summer, return to Mexico during the slow winter months, and return the following year. They're predominantly young men with the faces of boys. We're dependent on their strong backs and quick hands. And they are hungry for work.

Everyone is paying higher wages this season, but it doesn't matter, my grapes needed to be picked yesterday with no one scheduled to work tomorrow. Plus the grape crop is huge. Workers are detained at each farm for a few extra days to complete the picking. That delays the start of the next farm and then the next and the next. I'm a small-time operator with only about forty acres of raisins, so I'm last on the list according to the laws of real economics and pecking orders. Although I'll pay the same wages or even higher ones, work crews satisfy the larger places first, farms that give them more work throughout the year.

And I don't get angry enough. Unlike working with mother nature, where complaining won't stop a cold front or an invasion of worms, grumbling to a labor contractor might result in some workers for my fields. In fact, the louder I bitch the more pickers I may get. I talk with a neighbor about our plight. We both agree, if we yell and curse, perhaps we'll get a small work crew started. The old squeaky wheel theory. It's a game I have yet to learn.

SEPTEMBER
10
TH
.