This is an abandoned cracker house we found years ago. It is located way out in the scrub, on the north east side of town. It is apparently pretty well know, as everytime we go out there, some other plants are missing, mostly the ones we want. This appeared to be a nursery operation of some sort, with overhead irrigation strung throughout the hammock. It looks as if orchids might have been the big crop. However, there are also palms, bromeliad, and other exotics. Sherry likes "shopping" here, because the plants are all hardened to the conditions here in Palmdale. There are also good sweet citrus trees. We found about 6 of them. You can tell that they are good by the number of rat eaten fruits on the ground around the trees. The rats are an invasive species, imported from South East Asia back in the 60's. They have overtaken Florida. They are arboreal rats (live in trees), and eat fruit, citrus mainly. They are tenacious, and destructive. We had these rats during the last drought. They did over $1000. in damage to the plumbing, chewing through the pipes to get at the water. I don't like them, but when you are in the wilds, and you want to locate a good citrus for eating, look on the ground for signs of rat damaged fruit. They will only eat the best fruit. We ended up with a nice yucca, some ferns, and the rest of the good oranges that we could reach (the rats only eat what falls on the ground). The oranges were delicious, navel and velencia's.

Back home we foiled up Arleens project, along with 4 boxes of dichroic bevels, for suncatchers.

Today, we pack up and head over to Venice for a Howard Allan show. On the way we are going to stop at Tim Millers Studio, and collect so industrial dichroic for inventory, and the two panels we need for the Bowman Project.