Date Night in the Orchard

  From my previous blog posts, we have established that there is a lot of farming that happens in and around my home town; specifically almonds.  This means there are almond orchards everywhere.  The orchards look a little different than you might expect.  Almost all of them are set in this shallow bowl. I know it may sound weird, but in the Central Valley, we do flood irrigation for watering the trees.  Some farmers use sprinkler systems, but flooding is the main type of watering used.  At the edge of each orchard, you can see a cement well with an opening.  On specific days, the farmers will literally flood their orchards to water them.  The shallow bowl ensures that the water stays put.  It's pretty common to drive by an orchard and see that the irrigation has made it into a small lake for a day.  It's actually pretty cool to see.

  As one can imagine, teenagers in a farming community get bored and use what's around them to find entertainment.  In our case it was, (you guessed it), almond orchards.  You would be surprised at the creative things kids thought to do.  There was the obvious throwing parties and drinking, but then there were the more creative.  My friend had a jeep which he would take driving through the orchard.   He would drive in and out of the steep shallow bowl and strategically drive around the trees.......at night.  It was terrifying.  Apparently my husband and his friends would shoot roman candles at each other amongst the almond trees.  But don't worry, they used eye protection so they were totally safe (cue eye roll).  But the most creative thing I saw done goes to my friend Tony.  He invited several of us to have a group date night together.  When I arrived, he took us deep into the orchard in his backyard.  In the middle, there was a couch, and a TV set up.  He decided we were all going to watch a horror movie, in the middle of a pitch black orchard (did I mention that it was late at night?).  Just to preface, I HATE scary movies.  It takes me forever to stop thinking about them.  When I watched the movie, The Ring, I couldn't stay by myself in a room with a TV for months.  During Mothman Prophecies, I stuck my face into my sisters arm during the entire thing.  Didn't even look at the screen.  Needless to say, I don't handle them well.  I am proud of myself though, I stuck through the date and had some terrifying fun.  I guess that's what you do when you have a good looking date, are surrounded by your friends, and don't want to look like a chicken.  Kudos to Tony.  He gets the most creative date ever award.

  I would love to hear your most creative date.  Drop your comments below.