The Valley Formerly Known As

Once upon a time, the fertile acres of the Santa Clara Valley were dubbed the Valley of Heart's Delight. But like so many others, it was Silicon Valley that drew me here. Our industry has transformed the world, leaving scant traces of the valley's rural past.

My bicycle has taken me through the less developed land of nearby counties: Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Mateo, Alameda, Marin, Napa, Sonoma, Stanislaus, San Benito, San Luis Obispo. [I get around.]

The back roads meander through wild land, with deer and coyotes, turkeys and towering redwoods. They also cross farmland, with horses and cattle, fields of berries and grapes, lettuce and cabbage. There aren't many orchards left.

They took all the trees
Put 'em in a tree museum

Schoolchildren make field trips to plots that are kept for historical purposes. A few plots remain in family hands, barely enough to sustain the occasional roadside stand. Much of the “local” produce at our farmers' markets travels here from California's Central Valley.

My bike route to (and from) work varies little; for the past two years, the final stretch to the office is a 4-mile segment of a multi-use trail. By now, I have passed the sights along the trail more than 150 times, and learned to identify some of the native flora. Dazzled by the trailside Matilija poppies and California flannel bushes, three or four gnarled and stubby trees were easy to overlook.

Here, between the right-of-way for high voltage transmission lines and the freeway, are the remains of an orchard. A couple of trees, abandoned and neglected for decades, are studded with tiny apricots. Intensely flavorful tiny apricots. (I couldn't resist sampling some.) There is very little flesh around the stone, unlike the (mostly flavorless) variety we find in the grocery store.

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot