Extra Tid-bit Wednesday #2

Today is Wednesday, so I'm doing an extra tid-bit blog post. I wanted to explain to everyone the blog's background picture. I'd love to be able to say that I live right where this picture is taken, but I don't. I live about 10-15 miles away, almost at the edge of a small city. We have access to these country places, but I live "in town."

The mountains in the back separate the High Desert from the San Fernando Valley. Even though the mountains do not look that big in the picture, they really are huge and majestic when you drive through them. This picture was taken in late spring this year, so all the desert flowers and golden poppies were blooming. We hiked the park and were able to catch magnificent views of the valley all around us.

Driving through the country roads, you can only see a few houses dotting the landscape. As we drove back home, we took another route and saw a bunch of sheep being herded across the road. I love watching sheep as they rush from one place to another. I hoped that I would see some bouncing sheep, but they just lazily walked across the road.

Because this is the High Desert, there aren't very many farms. The soil is sandy and clayey, so there is no natural topsoil to work with. In our own garden, we have had to create a compost pile that's been helping to cultivate earthworms and topsoil over the past few years we've lived here.

Most of the farms/ranches out here take care of animals, like the sheepherders. Usually, you'll see more horses than cows. We headed out west from our town to go to the place pictured above, but if we'd gone east, we would have found farms with goats, llamas, and more sheep. There are some farms in town (they retained their agriculture zoning when the town was built up). While many of them do not care for animals or grow crops, some of them do, mostly with chickens and goats.

This is really a nice place to live in, but the cost of living is too high, and getting a well-paid job means commuting for at least an hour towards the Valley. Getting a better-paying job here means working at the same place for a very long time or knowing just the right people. At any rate, the beauty outside of town does make me happy, but I long to live in different places and travel. I hope this was a good explanation of the surrounding area in which we live!