Photo Essay: Harvesting Oranges in Heritage Park

This is January in California: the beginning of the orange harvest.

There are lots of opportunities to pick your own fruit in Southern California all year long, but I haven't taken advantage of any of them yet. No cherry-picking in Leona Valley or apple picking in Oak Glen or Julian. No watermelons in Irvine...no persimmons or pomegranates in Bakersfield...no Ojai pixies.

I haven't even visited a pumpkin patch out here. Most times, I'm proud of myself if I shop at the farmer's market.

I didn't grow up doing any of these things, either. We didn't cut down our own tree for Christmas. We ate vegetables that came in cans and fruits in the form of jellies.

But there's really nothing like a food source that goes from tree to tongue, so I headed out to La Verne  to pick some oranges from the grove on a one and a half-acre ranch surrounding the historic Weber House, which was saved from destruction in the 1980s.



Every Saturday from now until March, for just $5, the La Verne Heritage Foundation will provide the five-pound bags...



...and the pickers...



...and set you off to their orange trees.



Of course, early in the season, there are plenty of oranges to choose from within arm's reach...



...but some people's pick for the perfect fruit might be hanging from a branch a bit higher than eye level.



The Weber House was not only saved, but is also open for tours.



Built in the late 1880s, it was a private home for John Weber, a long-time resident of La Verne, who resided there until 1914.



After that, it became part of a working citrus farm, and its present-day condition has been restored to a recreation of its 1915-era past. It was actually relocated a few blocks here to Heritage Park.



Sure, you can just take your oranges and run, but it's fun to explore the antique equipment...



... like the horse-drawn "spray rig" made out of a 1930 Ford Model "A" truck.



Some of those orange trees can grow pretty tall.



There's also the historic Sloan Barn...



...and a historic display of rusty old hoppers, tractors...



...manure spreaders, furrowers...



...oil and water tanks, smudge pots...



...wagons, trailers...



...and, of course, flatbed trucks.



Now, it's not so much of a commercial endeavor as a community one.



So you pick as many pieces of fruit as you can, and without weighing them...



...cram them all into a five pound bag.

When I set off to go picking, I asked if there was a particular spot I should start from. The gentleman at the front kiosk sent me to the back, where the fruit on the trees "don't look so pretty, but they're the sweetest you'll ever taste."

And he was right.

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: Anaheim Packing House, Restored and Reopened
Photo Essay: Last Chance Weekend Scenic Excursion, Santa Paula to Fillmore
Photo Essay: E. Waldo Ward & Son Ranch
Photo Essay: E. Waldo Ward Gourmet Foods, Redux
Photo Essay: Them Apples
Photo Essay: Gone Fishin'

Appointment Viewing

I really should make more of a point to watch the sunset, rather than hoping to maybe catch a glimpse of it in my rear view mirror or between two buildings.

Now that I'm waking early to work on East Coast hours, I'm actually up before the sun on a daily basis. And although I don't get to watch the sunrise per se, I get to watch the night turn into day with the arrival of its light, shining through my apartment window.



I think one of the reasons I like James Turrell's skyspaces so much is because they make sunrise and sunset an event. They give you a reason to know what time they're going to happen, and they give you the opportunity to pause and watch. If only we could all get a spectacular show by just staring up at the ceiling.



When I was in the San Gabriel Valley earlier today for some loosely-planned explorations, I decided to stretch my day as long as I could so I could catch sunset at the Dividing the Light skyspace, which Turrell installed in 2007 at his alma mater, Pomona College.



The metal canopy structure was built in the courtyard behind Lincoln Hall and is open to the public, so technically anybody can stare up at the sky through the aperture anytime they want. But that's kind of not the point.



Twenty five minutes before sunset, the colored light turns on, as the temperature seems to drop 20 degrees and the natural light begins to fade. The pool reflects the aperture above it, but it also bubbles and ripples and maybe even plays some kind of music or other sound installation. Or it's an auditory illusion, perhaps.



At first, curious visitors stop by and leave shortly thereafter because nothing seems to be happening.



If the color scheme of the lighting is changing, it's barely perceptible.



It helps to look at the horizon now and then. It also helps to close your eyes or look away entirely and then refocus a while later to see if anything looks different.



And then, sometime after the time of sunset officially passes, the light begins to change color, from fuschia to blue, purple, pink, and orange—and spectators arrive in pairs to recline on the bench or place their heads in their companions' laps.



Dividing the Light runs for a full hour after sunset and then starts up again in the morning 100 minutes before sunrise. And after that, before it commemorates the sunset again, it treats visitors to a brief three-minute light show (called a "chime") every hour on the hour, though perhaps with the exception of on the hour before sunset. (It didn't run today at 4 p.m., at least.)

I mean, the rise and fall of the sun should be appointment viewing. It's so easy to take for granted; it's so easy to just watch TV instead. And while we're staring at our screens, we're only seeing those pink skies through someone else's social media posts, and not with our own eyes.

Of course, the same could be said for Turrell's work. But until you get the chance to experience a skyspace of your own, this time-lapse video will tide you over:



Related Posts:
The Art of Seeing
Photo Essay: Hiking Through a Dream Home in the Hills
A Proper Sunset

Photo Essay: New Year's Day at the Rose Parade

One of the things I regret not doing while I lived in New York is going to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (or even visiting the staging area for the balloon inflation the night before). I never saw the Rockefeller Center treelighting, walked the Halloween Parade, or watched the ball drop in Times Square, either.

Maybe those are things for tourists to do. But I kind of wish I had those experiences in my coffer.

Never mind that I get claustrophobic and panicky in crowds. The biggest reason I never went to the Thanksgiving Day Parade is because I just couldn't get up that early.

It's the same thing that's kept me from going to the annual Rose Parade on New Year's Day, though I've helped decorate a float and viewed the floats after the parade; I've met the horses and seen the marching bands play. I've always prioritized going out on New Year's Eve above getting up on New Year's morning.

But last year, when I saw the finished floats up close, I realized that seeing them parked after-the-fact gave me only a sliver of the experience. These floats don't just roll down Orange Grove and Colorado Boulevards. Some of them are full-on animatronic extravaganzas, accompanied by music, smoke, celebrities, or all of the above.

It was then that I started to think I should really just go to the Rose Parade to get the full experience.

Of course, I had an entire year to think about it and plan, but I still wasn't sure until the very last minute. I hoped for a magical invitation to something spectacular on New Year's Eve night. I wished for a reason to stay up all night.

Neither one of those things ever came. And, in fact, I'd become convinced that I actually could get up that early, since I've been getting up and starting my workday on East Coast hours every day for weeks now.

And this morning, with my daily alarm again going off at 6:30 a.m., I proved myself right: I got up and dragged myself to Pasadena to watch the Rose Parade.



Incredibly, there are many people who camp out all night to secure a good spot along the parade route, but I took the easy way out and bought a ticket to a brunch party on the second floor, right above the action, with the dome of Pasadena City Hall in view in the distance.



Having fully done my research over the past couple of years, I knew to expect certain appearances in the parade: the Queen and her court...



...the Budweiser Clydesdales...



...the Norco cowgirls...



...Medieval Times...



...and the marching bands for the college teams competing in the Rose Bowl, which this year were Iowa...



...and Stanford.



I was not, however, expecting this weird tree to accompany the Stanford band...



...nor the Laker Girls to dance alongside a float ridden by Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Paula Abdul.



Since familiarity is important to tradition, and since the Rose Parade is more about Pasadena than about LA, plenty of small town local heroes were out in full force...



...like the PCC Tournament of Roses Honor Band.



And then there are, of course, the floats.



Some of the floats are purely vehicles for advertising, like this year's Marco Polo-themed dragon float for Pasadena real estate company Singpoli...



...or the India Punjab-themed float to raise awareness of the Sikh faith (entertainingly through bhangra dancing).



Lots of these corporate floats have their own agenda—whether it's promoting heart health on the American Heart Association float...



...or peddling Frozen on the Disney float...



...trailed by Star Wars' storm troopers, C3PO, and Chewy.



But usually, the real highlights of the parade are the volunteer-decorated floats from the surrounding municipalities and unincorporated areas of LA County that stick to the parade's theme, like Sierra Madre's "Rollin' on the River" (whose spinning pink flamingos earned it the award for best animation).



In commemoration of the centennial celebration of our National Park Service, this year's theme was "Find Your Adventure"—and so La Canada Flintridge took their "Up a Creek..." float on a wild water adventure.



Kaiser Permanente's "Helping Mother Nature Thrive" float won the Grand Marshal's prize, appropriately in the year that the Grand Marshal was documentarian Ken Burns (of The National Parks: America's Best Idea fame).



"The Beauty of Adventure" float by Kiehl's paid tribute to at least one U.S. national park (Death Valley), as well as other adventurous destinations like Mount Everest and Alaska.



Northwestern Mutual's Swan Lake-themed "Dancing Into Adventure" float may seem as though it doesn't quite fit the theme, but adventure can be found in all kinds of different places and experiences—not just in national parks.

This is something I know, and am discovering more every day.

So now that I've decorated a float, watched the parade, viewed the floats the day after, and attended Equestfest and Bandfest, what is there left for me to do?

View the floats at 2:30 a.m. the night before, when their flowers are the freshest?

Ride a float? Drive a float?

Here's to more adventure in 2016.

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: The Marching Bands of the Rose Parade, 2016
Photo Essay: The Horses of the Rose Parade
Photo Essay: The Floats of the Rose Parade, 2015
Photo Essay: The House of Chewing Gum and Roses
Photo Essay: Pasadena Doo Dah Parade 2014