Chapter 2

Anita didn't really speak to me during the rest of the time that Tina stayed with her. As soon as her aunt returned from her visit in Mexico, Anita drove Tina back to Barstow. I helped her with setting the irrigation pipes and hoses, but that was just about the full extent of our interaction after that night she left in a big huff over what she felt was an absolute rejection of her.

In many ways, I was relieved that her silence to me seemed to be the full extent of how she was reacting to that evening's conversation. I didn't want to see her quit the farm and move completely out of my life. As far as I was concerned, her silence wasn't uncomfortable to me at all. The way I was looking at things, this gave me extra time to think about my feelings for Anita, without having to constantly be on my guard around her.

Ever since I'd come out to the farm to try to keep it running until Rob decided what he was going to do about the Army, it had been in the back of my mind that we'd probably end up selling the farm and dividing up the proceeds from the sale. Rob would do whatever he decided on, and I would go back to college and pick up where I'd left off when our mother died.

As time had passed, and I'd started getting more comfortable with all the things that needed doing on the farm, I'd begun considering the possibility that I might not wish to sell off the farm and go back to school. I was surprised at how well life on the farm suited my temperament and personality.

My being around Anita, as well as all the work she accomplished at the farm, played a large part in my change of outlook towards keeping the farm. From the farm receipts and records my parents had kept, I knew they had almost half a million dollars invested in the farm and all the machinery and equipment. I had no idea of how feasible it might be for me to go to a bank and try to borrow the quarter million it would take to buy out Rob's half interest. I wasn't even sure that Rob would be willing to sell his share for that.

If Anita's crop estimate of thirty five tons of nuts proved accurate, that would mean a gross of around one hundred forty thousand dollars for the growing season. This was assuming the crop quality graded out the same as it had for the prior four years. Even with annual expenses running in the sixty thousand dollar range, that would still leave eighty thousand net dollars of income for the year. I'd need to get a professional farm appraiser to come out and place a dollar amount on the property's fair value.

After Tina went back to Barstow, Anita's attitude towards me seemed to soften slightly. She started having longer conversations with me, although she usually stayed on impersonal topics, such as farm needs and weather conditions.

"Who did you assign the crop to this year, Kyle?" We were out moving lines of pipe and hoses from one field to another when she suddenly asked me the question.

"What do you mean, assign? Mom sold her last crop to S&S Produce, is that what you meant?"

"You don't have a contract with any co-op or agency? You're taking on an unnecessary exposure if that's true. Suppose the market price dives? It probably will if everyone has a much bigger yield than usual. The people that took over the place I used to work at told Mrs. Torres that they expect a ten per cent higher yield than last year. Those are mature trees for the most part, so another ten per cent is a lot. If there is a glut, you could end up not getting anyone to bid on the crop. You'd have to sell what you can at distressed prices, for animal feed, or to the oil processor people. You'd end up with fifty to seventy cents a pound."

In going over the sales records I had noticed that my parents had sold part of their crop in one place and the rest in another. The Newberry Springs Farmer's Cooperative received most of the crop for the first two years they had the farm. That was when my father had been alive. Mom sold about eighty per cent of the crop to S&S Produce last year, and had split it fifty-fifty between S&S and Michael Bros. Produce that first harvest after my father died. I had assumed that she had made her sales choices based on bids from the buyers. Until Anita had brought the subject up, I'd given almost no thought to who'd be buying this year's crop.

"Should I go see Mrs. Torres and ask her for some advice?"

"It is probably impossible for you to get anything good arranged at this late date. Didn't any of the buyers contact you about assigning your harvest to them?"

"No. I don't remember anyone contacting me. I opened all the mail that got delivered to the farm since mom died. I don't remember seeing anything like that. I know my dad used to sell most of the harvest to the Co-op. My mom must have had a reason for not doing that too."

"She was lucky the last two years. Yields weren't that high, and everyone who kept part of their crop back did well. Most growers will gamble with about twenty to thirty per cent of their expected harvest. I never heard of anyone coming to harvest without any crop assignments though. All you can do now is harvest early and try to get as much sold as you can before the rest bring their crop to market. You will lose quite a bit of yield that way, but it would be the safest thing to do."

"How much yield would we be giving up?"

"Harvest two weeks early, and you'd probably get about twenty five to twenty seven tons. You'd take a hit on quality ratings too. In the end, you would be lucky to gross out at sixty per cent of the dollar amount for a regular season yield."

She was talking about our getting around eighty thousand instead of one forty. That would put us pretty close to ending up at break even for the year. It didn't sound like a very inviting option to me. I started wondering if there weren't better alternatives than the ones Anita had given me.

"I think I'll hold off on doing any early harvesting. There isn't any reason why we need to panic about this. Even if worse comes to worse, we'll still be able to keep going. We've spent sixty thousand this year. If we have to sell for oil, we'd get at least seventy thousand at fifty cents a pound. Doing nothing, we're only risking ten thousand dollars by hoping for the best."

"It's your money, Kyle. If it was me though, I'd try to make sure I didn't have everything riding on a single option. If the yield is even higher than I've been hearing, you could end up getting a lot less than fifty cents a pound. It could go down to thirty five cents, if there ends up being too much product out there."

"I just don't want to panic. I'll make some phone calls and find out if there are any other choices we should consider. For right now though, let's try to get the biggest yield we can. I'm still leaning towards delaying the harvest as long as the nuts are still growing. If yields are gigantic for everyone, maybe we can find a market with bigger nuts."

"I'd say yours are pretty big if you're willing to gamble on such a long shot. Being the last grower to market in a glut might not be a winning strategy."

I left her then and walked back to my house. I did a careful search of all the records my parents had kept, searching for something that might explain what my mom was thinking when she went off in the sales direction she had taken. While I wasn't happy having to gamble, I felt like gambling was being forced on me by the circumstances I now found myself in. Long shot or not, I was going to embrace the strategy that left me with the most options for making a profit.

I placed a phone call to Mr. Mark Andrews, the S&S buyer my mother had dealt with for the past two growing seasons. What I learned from him was that their company was fully subscribed for this harvest. He did offer to come by to see me to discuss working something out for the following year's crop. I told him I'd be happy to talk with him, but that I'd be making a lot of calls in the meantime, trying to get this year's crop sold, and possibly laying the foundation for a longer term relationship with some other buyer. Mark laughed, wishing me well with my efforts.

I called the business manager of the NSFC. (Newberry Springs Farmers Cooperative) He remembered my father he said, and gave me a few of the reasons my mother had for severing the farm's relationship with the co-op. Apparently, my father had been dissatisfied with how the co-op marketed their member's crops. He felt they were too conservative, and that this resulted in too low prices for the member growers. One thing he did confirm for me was that everyone was predicting a huge pistachio harvest this year. He also told me that buyer demand was also expected to be higher than normal. He gave me two names and numbers of buyers he thought might still be interested in bidding on current harvest crops.

The first buyer I called told me that he had filled his company's quota already. The second one told me that he was still in the market for a limited quantity of highest quality pistachios. I sold him ten thousand pounds of top quality nuts at $2.25 per pound. Anita had assured me that we'd get a greater percentage of top quality if we left the nuts on the trees for a later harvest. According to her, we could be confident of getting between fifteen and twenty thousand pounds of top quality. I felt somewhat better after that last phone call.

I made several other phone calls to nut buyers that I'd been able to find on my own. In every instance, they had either committed to buying all that they were willing to buy, or else admitted they were holding off on making any purchases, in anticipation of much lower pricing, once the full scope of the pistachio glut was widely known.

In the middle of all this, I received a phone call from Rob. He was now in Iraq, and told me he was planning to ask for an early out discharge in order to reenlist for another six year term in the Army. When I asked him if he was certain he wanted to do this, he replied that he was. I told him that I was thinking about keeping the farm, and continuing to operate it.

"Look, Kyle, whatever you want to do is fine with me. I have enough right now with my Army pay. Figure out what the farm was worth back when mom died. I'll sell you my half for my share of what it was worth then. You can pay what you can afford into an account for me, no interest. When I get back there, we'll draw up the paperwork and make everything all legal."

"Rob, we're talking a lot of money here. Mom and dad invested all their savings in this farm. We're talking half a million dollars. Half of that is your share. Are you sure you want to handle this the way you're talking about?"

"I think they'd be happy that one of us wanted to take it over. I'm not that much into financial things. Set up that account and start making deposits into it. When I get back, we'll sit down and finalize the deal."

After that phone call with my brother, I went to the bank and opened up a trust account for him, with me as the trustee, and him as the sole beneficiary. I opened it with one thousand dollars, but my plan was to put in half of the net proceeds I got from selling this year's harvest. I was planning on going with the half million dollar figure as the value of the farm when mom died. I believed that was being fair to both of us.

"Kyle, we need to discuss what you want to do about bringing in the harvest crew. I talked to Mrs. Torres, and she said it was fine if I get some of my family out here to help with the harvest. I've got six of my aunts, uncles and cousins that work as a harvest team. They've agreed to move out here and handle things for room, board, and ten cents a pound on the yield. I know they're one of the best harvest teams in this valley. I think you should hire them."

"Sounds fine to me. Are you going to stay out here and supervise them?"

"No room for me. I was planning on staying over in Tina's room at my aunt's house. I can drive back and forth from there if you want me to?"

"You could do that, or else you could move your stuff over to one of the spare rooms in my house. I've got plenty of room, and it would save you all the time and trouble of driving back and forth. An extra hour a day might come in handy."

"I couldn't do that. What would my family say if I moved into your house? It would make people talk, and cause me lots of headaches later. They'd all think that we've been out here shacked up for the whole time I've worked here."

"It was just a suggestion. Maybe one or two of your male cousins can move into one of my spare rooms? You could have the room they wouldn't need in the trailer."

"All my cousins on the harvest team are females. My aunts and uncles are married to each other, so they'd want to sleep together too. Maybe one of those couples could take that room of yours?"

"Good, then its all settled. Are you still sure that nut harvester you repaired will last throughout the harvest?"

"It works fine right now. If something goes wrong with it, I'm pretty sure it won't be anything major."

Anita had replaced a lot of worn out parts on the harvester. It had ended up costing me thirteen hundred dollars in parts for the repair. Anita had spent a lot of her time making the repairs to it. She claimed it was now a much better machine than the one I had located to buy for ten thousand dollars.

"Call your family and let them know we're going to wait as long as practical to start harvesting. Did you already tell them the yield we're expecting?'

"Why else you think they agreed to coming here this year? About that other thing we just got done with, that sleeping at your house thing. If my aunt and uncle are going to sleep there too, there isn't any reason why I can't go there too and have my own room to sleep in. They'll be around to chaperone, and make sure nothing funny is going on."

"Okay with me. Like I said, there's plenty of room. The three of you will have to share the downstairs bathroom though. I assume they'll sleep upstairs in the guest bedroom, and you'll stay downstairs in the bedroom I have there?"

"Which bedroom is bigger?"

"The one downstairs is a lot bigger, but my bedroom is upstairs. I thought you wanted to do things the way that gave things the best appearances?"

"They would know you'd never try anything funny while they were in the house with us."

We left it like that. She was the one who claimed to be worried about appearances, not me. I already knew I had no plans to try to compromise her reputation. A few weeks later, Guadalupe and Maria Gomez moved into my downstairs bedroom. They were a nice couple, easily in their forties. Their daughter, Theresa, was one of Anita's cousins who was part of the harvest team. The other cousin was Elena Vasquez, daughter of Raul and Consuela Vasquez, Anita's other aunt and uncle. They were living in the trailer.

It turned out that Aunt Maria was the cook for the harvester's. After one or two meals she cooked, I found myself immensely grateful that she was part of the group. That woman could cook us a storm. In the five weeks they were out at the farm, Mexican cuisine became my all time favorite food. I tried to pay attention to all the aspects of nut harvesting I could. I learned how difficult it was to use the nut harvester. Each tree required a different level of shaking. Lupe Gomez was the designated operator of the nut harvester. It was as much an art as a science to know when to harvest a tree, and what level of force needed to be exerted to get the highest yield with the least amount of permanent damage to the trunk of the tree.

It turned out that there were literally hundreds of small differences that a professional harvesting team could do that made a huge difference in how successful a grower's season turned out to be. I could see that each member of the team knew exactly what they needed to be doing at every turn. Raul and Consuela handled all the sorting and bagging of the harvested crop. They were spending thirteen to sixteen hours a day poring over the harvest and making decisions on where each harvested product belonged. The two younger female cousins gathered up the nuts from the catch sheets, as well as from off the ground, transporting them over to the sorting bins under the covered tarpaulin that served as our sorting area. Lights had been set up over in the sorting area, necessary because good clear vision was required to assist with the hand sorting that was taking place.