On Martin Luther King Jr. Day Maya had to attend a Basic Life Saving update course. Since we were out and about on the west side of town we decided to try our luck again and the pretzel factory. Alas! They were closed for the holiday. We didn’t even think about that. That was the third time we went and failed to get factory-direct pricing on tasty pretzels…
Well, since we were out we decided to stop off at this place Maya had heard about. It’s
Sahuaro Ranch Park. It used to be just Sahuaro Ranch where William Henry Bartlett built up a smallish farm and homestead into a thriving agricultural complex. Starting with figs, alfalfa and grapes in 1886 he expanded to citrus (one of Arizona’s Five Cs of Commerce), dates and olives by 1891. The ranch eventually reached over 2,000 acres and also raised milk cattle and hogs. A house was built in 1881 but the Bartletts never really lived there. The house was taken over and expanded by the ranch administrators, their families and the farm workers. Part of the land that was once the ranch and all of the historic buildings were eventually acquired by the city of Glendale to make “the crown jewel of Glendale’s park system.” Eighty acres are now covered in ball fields, playgrounds and picnic areas. The park includes seventeen acres of the historic ranch area including some of the orange groves, a few palms and an expensive rose garden.
Neat!
It’s a unique place. Public parks don’t usually have orange groves or historic houses. The house is actually two with a patio-like walkway between them. The rose garden was not in bloom at all, but it was still kind of a nice place to stroll through. Kinda weird though: it was infested with roosters. All roosters. Not hens. And they were noisy! All of them were crowing all the time. You could hear it everywhere in the park. We are city folks so our main experience with rooster noise is the stereotypical they-crow-at-dawn thing. The truth seems to be more that they
start crowing at dawn. We were there at mid-day and still; Ahroo-ahroo-ahroooooooo all the time. There are supposed to be rabbits too, but we didn't see any.
Since it’s a public park the fruit that remains is free for the picking. You are limited to three pieces per person per visit. A lot of it is harvested by volunteers and given away to shelters and other places. We saw some of the large bins of harvested fruit ready to be shipped somewhere. Maya chose three bright orange fruits with nobly texture. Matt chose three larger and more yellow fruits from different tree. We learned an important lesson from these fruits. Just because the fruit came from a formerly commercial orchard doesn’t mean that it tastes as commercially wonderful as it once did. There must be some tricks to watering and fertilization that orange-growers use. Maya’s orange were impossibly sour. More like a lemon. Matt’s were impossibly bitter. More like a grapefruit, but
really, really bitter. At least visiting the park was a fun afternoon diversion.
Well, since we were out we decided to stop off at this place Maya had heard about. It’s Sahuaro Ranch Park. It used to be just Sahuaro Ranch where William Henry Bartlett built up a smallish farm and homestead into a thriving agricultural complex. Starting with figs, alfalfa and grapes in 1886 he expanded to citrus (one of Arizona’s Five Cs of Commerce), dates and olives by 1891. The ranch eventually reached over 2,000 acres and also raised milk cattle and hogs. A house was built in 1881 but the Bartletts never really lived there. The house was taken over and expanded by the ranch administrators, their families and the farm workers. Part of the land that was once the ranch and all of the historic buildings were eventually acquired by the city of Glendale to make “the crown jewel of Glendale’s park system.” Eighty acres are now covered in ball fields, playgrounds and picnic areas. The park includes seventeen acres of the historic ranch area including some of the orange groves, a few palms and an expensive rose garden. Neat!
It’s a unique place. Public parks don’t usually have orange groves or historic houses. The house is actually two with a patio-like walkway between them. The rose garden was not in bloom at all, but it was still kind of a nice place to stroll through. Kinda weird though: it was infested with roosters. All roosters. Not hens. And they were noisy! All of them were crowing all the time. You could hear it everywhere in the park. We are city folks so our main experience with rooster noise is the stereotypical they-crow-at-dawn thing. The truth seems to be more that they start crowing at dawn. We were there at mid-day and still; Ahroo-ahroo-ahroooooooo all the time. There are supposed to be rabbits too, but we didn't see any.
Since it’s a public park the fruit that remains is free for the picking. You are limited to three pieces per person per visit. A lot of it is harvested by volunteers and given away to shelters and other places. We saw some of the large bins of harvested fruit ready to be shipped somewhere. Maya chose three bright orange fruits with nobly texture. Matt chose three larger and more yellow fruits from different tree. We learned an important lesson from these fruits. Just because the fruit came from a formerly commercial orchard doesn’t mean that it tastes as commercially wonderful as it once did. There must be some tricks to watering and fertilization that orange-growers use. Maya’s orange were impossibly sour. More like a lemon. Matt’s were impossibly bitter. More like a grapefruit, but really, really bitter. At least visiting the park was a fun afternoon diversion.
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