My name is Gabe Gold. I am a new social media intern for the UC ANR Blog. With my first blog I will be describing myself and how I became interested in agriculture.
I am a modern day farm boy. I grew up on a small blood orange orchard in Somis, Ca called Old Gold Farms. When growing up I looked at the farm as a limiting factor in my life, I wanted to be able to walk to my friends’ houses or even to school. Instead, I had very few neighbors under the age of 50 (all of which were a minimum of 25 acres away) and my drive to school lasted about 25 minutes. When my friends asked me where I lived no one had even heard of the city of Somis! While my friends were biking and skateboarding I was in the orchard picking oranges, juicing oranges, or riding our farm vehicles.
Eventually, I relished in my non-conventionality. I began selling our delicious produce at local farmer’s markets. I suddenly felt at home, other people knew what the farm life was like. It wasn’t just the other vendors that I related with, it was also the customers. Never before in my life had I seen people care about the quality of food that they purchased. It was a beautiful change, the work that was put in to our fruit and/or juice was appreciated without question. Many people impressed me with their extreme knowledge of blood oranges, but I much preferred teaching the others who had no idea what they were.
I now know what a great treat it is to live on a farm. In the spring time I wake up to an overwhelming, but great smell of orange blossoms and in the winter I look out of my bedroom window and see rows of fruit bearing trees just 20 feet away. Anytime my mother needs lemons in the kitchen, my father jokes around “I’ll go run to the store” and we walk to the lemon area of our farm and pick a 10 pound bag of the freshest smelling lemons.
I am now in my senior year of high school eager to learn more and more about agriculture and as I do I will post what I learn to this blog.