before the housing boom, the san fernando valley was, unlike it is today, fairly desolate—its acreage filled from foothill to foothill with farmland, the plots of which were on the whole dotted with orange trees. but then the california aqueduct was built and los angeles had its water. thus, the migration beyond the basin began, and development exploded in the valley beyond.
i grew up in one of these homes, at the very edge of the western rim of the san fernando valley. so too did my mother, only in the northern tip of the valley, which was one of the first neighborhoods to be built amongst the farmland. my grandparents own this house still, and even now, my grandfather harvests oranges from the three trees that remain on their property. and as i wrote in the first post of this blog, the memory of the orange tree that hung over the backyard of my childhood home lingers with me still.
and that, for me, is the human element behind this necessity of life, such a widely marketed and ballyhooed thing, this thing called food.