Leona Valley, located west of Palmdale, nestled among the mountains of the Angelus National Forest, is a beautiful and serene small community, considered "light agricultural", where you can enjoy the yearly "Cherry Parade". Yes, we actually do grow organic fruits and nuts, as well as several varieties of cherries, peaches, apples, pears, pomegranates, apricots, and nuts such as walnuts and almonds. When moving here from the San Fernando Valley, we knew we did not want to live in a track home, although beautiful but if we were making a move, we wanted something totally different. So we looked rural, and voila ! Leona Valley we found. Nothing desert-like here, Leona Valley took our breath away, the mountains, the rural setting, the winding roads, the vineyards, all those stars at night, horse back riding to go to the store or restaurant, the llamas, children happily and safely walking or bicycling around with friends. We fell in love with this little piece of Americana, and living in a rural -country setting was so rewarding for the soul. So we started planting fruit trees, took care of our neglected trees, and discovered that what I thought were little avocados were actually walnuts. Who knew ! Now on our eight year here on our ranch, we have so much fruits and nuts, that it is time to rethink as to what to do with so much delicious fruit. During cherry season, which lasts only about four weeks, and starts around the first week of June, cherry picking is so fascinating that we have bus loads of tourists coming week after week to pick off the trees our organic cherries from any of our 17 local cherry orchards.
About our walnuts, wow ! what a discovery. during our first year, we just let the crows enjoy them, bu the second year, we were curious as what they were and what to do with them. We started collecting buckets full, and figuring out what to do with them, although we google and asked around, we ended up with black tinted thumbs, as the green outer covering stains your fingers. And it did not wash off, time wore the black off our thumbs. Live and learn was the lesson here. By now we have a system and can enjoy our fresh, delicious and organic walnuts. I am now in search as to how to make the fruits of our labor that come from our organic ranch make us a return on our water bill. If we enjoy them so much, I know someone that appreciates fresh fruits and nuts grown with lots of love but without any chemicals, would also enjoy them as much as we do.
