The New California Ice Age

BBbbbbbbbbrrrrrrrrrr.....

If you aren't here to experience it yourself, take my word for it, it is damn cold. Bone-chilling-can't-feel-your-toes-C-O-L-D! I was sad to see that many of the plants in my garden are dying from the frost. The weather is normally so temperate here that we plant things that can't withstand frost, since a real frost only comes every 20 years. When I saw the brown deadness of the frost in my garden, I went out to pick all of the lemons on the lemon tree. I wonder what will come back and what will be lost...I will know in the next couple of weeks...

While I am mourning seven or eight plants, CA citrus growers might have lost an entire crop, right before harvest. Small farmers already have a tough life and this frost will surely push many families into bankruptcy.

On the topic of small farmers, I am a big advocate of farm subsidies, but not in the "grow corn sugar and genetically processesed soybeans" sort of manner. Rather, I like the idea of farm subsidies to preserve greenspace and the farm culture that we (allegedly) revere here in the US. Other countries have found inventive ways of helping out small farmers. In Italy, they encourage farmers to rent out converted barns or guest houses to tourists, as part of their agriturismoitalia campaign. In France, the gite program brings tourists out to rural areas. A similar goverment funded program in the US would help preserve small farms here. But we would rather have corn syrup I suppose...

On a more upbeat note, I found a wonderful blog called I Heart Farms, that highlights life on a small farm in Santa Cruz County...