V6N3A

Wanna Date?

This months educational story is about the Date Palm Tree. The fruit from these trees is said to be the most expensive and labor intensive to produce of all the fruit trees. Labor intensive because nature has not provided a natural way to pollinate the trees so it must be done by hand with a lady's powder puff. Expensive because the trees must be nurtured, pruned and picked by hand in order to acquire a quality crop of dates.

The trees are planted 1 male to 48 females per acre on 30 foot spacing and each male produces enough pollen for 48 females and is done by workers. It takes a tree at least 5 years before it produces its first crop of 30-40 lbs. of dates. Full production will be reached sometime between the 10th and 15th year and will reach 150-300 lbs. per tree. The Date Palm is a desert plant but requires copious amounts of water. Natives of the old world say, "A date palm must have its feet in the water, and its head in the fires of heaven." The roots of the palm must be kept wet constantly, but the fruit must be kept dry and away from the summer rains, which could damage it. So paper hoods, installed by the workers, protect the fruit from the rains and the birds. Some low quality fruit is left unhooded so that the birds will eat it, and ignore the healthy fruit.

The fruit ripens at the end of August and the trees are picked, by hand, from then until the end of December as the fruit ripens. In January when all the fruit has been picked, the workers dethorn the trees of projections which can injure workers as they pick the fruit. They clean up the gardens and another cycle of date production begins.

Shields Date Gardens in Indio produces 91 different varieties of dates. While dates are grown from Indio through the entire Coachella Valley and down to Bard California, Indio seems to have the most expensive. We've bought dates in Bard and they were quite a bit cheaper than the price in Indio. Perhaps the labor costs are the reason they are so expensive here. Or perhaps the price will drop around Easter when the Snowbirds start flying North again. The information provided in this story was derived from a movie we saw entitled, "The Sex Life Of A Date." We have nothing better to do.

Indio Date Festival

We had heard for several years about the Date Festival and never had the opportunity to attend it before. But with our complimentary stay at Outdoor Resorts, we were right in the heart of the festival in Indio, California. We not only attended the festival but also visited Shields Date Gardens during the same stay.

The festival, which is billed as the Date Festival and Riverside County Fair is mostly just that, a County Fair. Albeit a very large one. The vendors, rides and exhibits are very similar to what we have at home except more extensive.

We experienced a couple of new foods while we were there. We couldn't pass up the Fried Twinkies for a snack, and we also tried the Fried Zucchini with our Chicken Strips for supper. We also found a vendor selling Fried Snickers and Frozen Twinkies with a chocolate coating. We had to draw the line somewhere, and we passed on the remaining concoctions.

We also saw a Bull-Rama during our visit to the festival. It had been the first bull-riding session we had seen in person, having watched them for several years on the TNN television network. It was very exciting to watch even though there were only about 12 bulls that were ridden. They also had a Junior competition in which a 17 year old girl got hung up on the bull and was dragged and stepped on all the way around the arena. She was walking around later, but I'm sure she was also bruised and battered the next day.

During the festival we also attended the President's Day Parade in downtown Indio. We love seeing the Spanish Horsemen and women in their costumes mounted aboard finely appointed horses. There were also a couple of prancing horses on the route. We even saw a half-dozen or so lowriders in the parade. Those are the cars that bounce up and down lifting themselves off the ground, in front or back.

Our visit to the Date Festival was a very pleasant one and I'm sure we will return again in the future. After all, where else can you attend a County Fair with all the great food in the middle of winter.

Smoothies

Our 7 weeks stay at Catalina Spa this year were rewarded with an excellent recipe from Phil and Joyce Bach of Martinez, CA.

Here Goes: Take a 12 oz. Frozen Fruit Juice of any flavor or combination of flavors and fling it into a blender. Take 12 oz. of Vodka and splash it into the same blender. Fill it up with ice. Blend that baby until its smooth and treacherous. Drink it with 2 other friends, and keep drinking until your friends turn into eight or the blender gets really blurry. Do not drive or try to operate industrial machinery until the next day.

Wooden Highway

About 20 miles west of Yuma lies what remains of the Old Plank Road. Constructed of 13,100 Oak planks, in 1915, that were donated by the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, the 8X10 foot sections were portable so that they could be moved quite readily to bridge the shifting sand. The "road" was placed over the Imperial Sand Dunes which were commonly referred to as "America's Sahara", and facilitated travel between Yuma and San Diego." There were actually 3 roads and they lasted for 11 years. While the remains of the road are very scant, we can attest to its need, getting stuck in the sand while looking for it. We did however, have a Border Patrol Officer willing to help us out, even though he wasn't needed.