The Western View: It’s Summer and Sabrina’s AWOL

Taylor Hillman Features, Western View

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Summer arrived with a vengeance, with our usual dry heat and lots of sunshine … most of us are settling in for a long, hot and dry summer. Of course, it’s the long sunny summer that makes this such a wonderful farming region – that’s a little consolation for enduring the heat.

But the boss? She’s gone where it’s nice and cool, out running around the northern Midwest, enduring 70 degree weather and the occasional rain – remember rain? Somebody had to do this Midwestern tour, checking out those sad and forlorn Wisconsin cows, tasting that vinegary Wisconsin wine, sampling their cheese curds – it was a tough job, and she did it, taking one for the team. If you’re following Sabrina’s trip on Facebook, you might think she’ s having fun, passing out all those cans of California almonds and sampling the local beverages. But I am sure she’s miserable. She even had to wear a jacket one day. I know she is painfully aware she is missing out on Fresno’s glorious days of summer, those days when even your tractor sweats because it’s so hot – 112 in the shade, and I’m only stretching it a little.

But I’m sure we’ll save some heat for her to enjoy, and maybe when she’s back, she’ll send me out on one of those tough jobs out here. I want to go watch lettuce grow; maybe have a fresh-picked strawberry over by Watsonville. Surely the boss has a job I can do up in Napa, or maybe in Salinas again, or Santa Barbara. … Oh! There’s a dairy on the way to Park field that has very contented cows – they like the foot massages they get from the earthquakes.

So we’ll get up before the sun, do our work before it gets too hot, then watch the grapes and almonds grow, drink plenty of water and stay in the shade – and I don’t really envy those easterners for their rain and cool weather; there’s just no place I’d rather be than California.

I’m Len Wilcox and that’s the Western View from AgNet West.