Yesterday’s post sparked a memory about Death Valley …
My late father-in-law, Ivan, loved to tell us about traveling across Death Valley to visit relatives, stationed on an Army base in California. He was born in 1910, so that might have been in the early ’20s. At that time, there apparently were no proper roads across the valley, but folks had discovered they could cut off a few hours’ time traveling southwest if they braved the Mojave Desert on their way to the coast.
So enterprising engineers devised a makeshift “road” of two narrow wooden slats over the sand, and Ivan’s family drove their Model T carefully on the boards, taking care not slip off one side or the other (talk about driving attentively!). And since a slip or a breakdown in the Mojave Desert’s extreme temperatures could be fatal, mounted men regularly patrolled the route (early highway patrolmen?).
Death Valley is located on the border between southeastern California and Nevada and covers a 3,000-square-mile area. It’s the lowest, driest, and hottest area in North America. (It’s also bordered by Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous U.S.). Consequently, it’s set lots of records: the highest recorded temperature on Earth (134°F), the greatest number of consecutive days over 100°F (154), the hottest daily low temperature ever recorded (107°F), the hottest 24-hour average temperature (117.5°F), and even the hottest overnight low (107°F). Not a place you’d want to get stranded.
Photo by Tuxyso via Wikimedia Commons
Today, California SR 190 travels through Death Valley, following the gold-rush path of 1849. A man named Herman Eichbaum was instrumental in creating a toll road through the valley in 1926, bringing tourism to the area. But I couldn’t find information about either the primitive wooden-slat route my father-in-law talked about or the early highway patrolmen. Maybe a similar story has been passed down in your family? Tell all!
Photo by Jon Rawlinson via Wikimedia Commons
Hot on the heels of the running goats, I must ask:
“Could you, would you, with a goat?”
Image courtesy of ThePoeticsProject.com
When Dr. Suess wrote Green Eggs and Ham, he probably didn’t entertain any serious notion that someone could be coaxed into dining in the company of farm animals …
“I could not, would not, with a goat!”
But, hey, Sam-I-Am was eventually able to coerce the fellow in the book to try green food, and it seems that customers at the Sakuragaoka Cafe in Tokyo’s Shibuya District are a really rather receptive to the idea of noshing with nannies.
No kidding!
Take a look:
“I Love My Farmers Market” is a summer-long celebration sponsored by American Farmland Trust.
American Farmland Trust is the only national non-profit dedicated to saving America’s farmland (5 million acres to date) and keeping family farmers on their land. The land that family farmers cultivate to grow fresh food for our families is disappearing from under their feet. One acre of farmland has been lost to unchecked development every minute of every day in the U.S. At that rate, all the farms at your farmers’ market could be wiped out in less than an hour.
Farmers’ markets provide a vital link from farmers to shoppers. AFT’s I Love My Farmers Market Celebration works to raise national awareness about farmers’ markets. Participants pledge dollars they intend to spend at their farmers’ markets each week, then the Top 100 most celebrated markets will receive a special logo honoring their achievement, AFT’s “No Farms, No Food” gear, and recognition on the Celebration’s website.
Pledges can be cast at LoveMyFarmersMarket.org. And, if you make a donation to American Farmland Trust during the I Love My Farmers Market Celebration, AFT board member Tom Gallo will match it dollar-for-dollar, making your gift go twice as far to help family farmers.
Here’s my husband, Nick, and son, Brian, in 1996 manning our Farmers’ Market booth in 1996. Markets are such a great place to launch your farm dreams—mine were a tad elaborate as it turns out:)
Nick and Brian at the Moscow Farmers’ Market, circa 1996.
Buy props used in MaryJane’s books and magazine!
5% of profits will benefit www.firstbook.org, a non-profit that provides new books to children from low-income families throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Here’s how:
MaryJane will post a photo and a description of a prop and its cost along with a few details as to its condition here: https://shop.maryjanesfarm.org/MaryJanesCurations. It’s a playful way to be the new owner of a little bit of farm herstory.
