On Monday afternoon, last week I began preparing for our class trip to Tierra Miguel Farm. Before leaving for the farm, I went to the Arts building on campus to check out a camera. I got lucky, and there was one Canon left, so I checked that one out. Then I walked back to my car and drove down to one of the front parking lots to meet Andy. I drove for our last trip, so he had offered to drive this time. I pulled into a spot and looked around, but I didn't see Andy's truck, so I started putting the farm address into my iphone so that I could navigate. A few seconds later, Andy walked up to my door. Oops! He had been there when I pulled up, but I hadn't seen him because he was driving a different car. I quickly apologized, and we got into his car and left.
It turned out that it wasn't really necessary for me to navigate because Andy knew the way, and he did a great job of getting us there! We arrived right on time at 3:30, but we were a little unsure of whether or not we were at the right place. We didn't see Deborah or anyone in our class at first, but when we walked inside we saw Deborah and realized we were in the right place. We picked up some informations from the table, and then we sat down for the presentation.
Once the rest of our class showed up, Beth Ann Levendoski began her presentation about the farm and agriculture. It was actually a lot more interesting that I had anticipated. I thought that it was very cool that the organization purposes to have interns and to teach students about agriculture. Their idea of creating a foodshed report to show the processes of how food goes from the fields to our homes and grocery stores was very helpful, and it could be a very good source of information to find for efficient ways of growing and selling produce. I also like that the farm maintains and conserves space for migratory birds. I learned many things about agriculture that I had no idea about before this trip.
After her presentation, everyone headed out onto the rest of the farm to take pictures and learn about everything that they grow there. The first thing that we photographed were the strawberry plants. They weren't producing any fruit at the time, but I could identify them because of the pretty little white flowers and the distict red and green leaves. When I was young my family had a little patch of strawberries in our backyard. I remember picking them to eat and admiring the flowers. We also saw some pretty pink flowers on some of the trees. I think that they were either apple or peach trees. The flowers reminded me of cherry blossoms although I think they were quite a bit bigger and there weren't very many of them. The light was still bright enough to take some good shots of them. I was happy with the lighting because it gave a warm glow.
Many of my photos didn't turn out very well because the light was fading fast, but I really liked taking pictures of the mountains in the background. Palomar Mountain looked great, and at one point had a sort of purple tint to it as the sun went down. As Andy and I were walking to catch up with the group, he mentioned that it would be cool to spot a lady bug or something like that. Just as he said that I looked down and saw one! What a coincidence!! Unfortunately, my pictures of the lady bug didn't turn out very well at all. Like many of my pictures, they were just too dark to brighten up without sacrificing most of the image quality. I did get one to turn out halfway decent though.
When we caught up with the group we found them plucking up a purple-colored vegetable, but I didn't catch the name of it. I thought it's colors were gorgeous though. Many people tasted it, but I guess I just wasn't brave enough to try it. Later some of us also pulled carrots out of the ground, and everyone said they were amazing. Very sweet. We also saw parsley and a bitter type of green that is used in salads. It was cool to see how these things are grown.
By the time we got ready to leave the sun had disappeared behind the hills. It had been even darker than before and it just got harder and harder to take good shots. Andy and I left around 6:00. The drive home was nice and quiet, and I couldn't wait to get home, eat, and check out the pictures from my camera.
We all piled back into the shuttle, and our next stop was at a small pond. Here, we got out and walked around for quite some time. Willie Pink talked to us about the camp that takes place there every year, and all of the structures that they build and tear down every year for that occasion. There were two different types of structures that they built. It was interesting to walk around and see all of the native plants that were growing there. I especially liked the wild cucumber, which has a pretty, little white flower, but I also saw white sage, mojave yucca, deergrass, and a small, yellow flower that I didn't catch the name of. I didn't get any pictures of it, but I also enjoyed hearing about the ringing rock. I had no idea that something like that existed.
We got on the shuttle once again and our last stop before going home was at the nursery. By this time I think we were all freezing in the wind as the sun went down. After Willie Pink showed us several things there, we got back on the shuttle and we were dropped off at our cars. Andy and I were both pretty tired and hungry at this point, so we just decided to get home as fast as possible. Luckily, it was still relatively light on the drive back because of the time change the day before.
