Question for those who live in California

[jyoutz]

I just got some bad news. The last apple processing plant in the region, Manzana, will close after this year's harvest.

My orchard is 10% of the acreage served by the contractor who tills, prunes, harvests my orchard and some others. However my harvest is a greater percentage of his apple revenue, due to quality. This plant closing is a severe blow to him. He also operates vineyards, owned and several locations under contract. Apples have balanced his good/bad years of grape harvest. For example in 2017 when smoke from the worst fire in California history (Tubbs Fire - Wikipedia) made the entire crop of wine grapes unsalable.

The plant's economics are undisputable. 90% of Manzana's production now, is apples trucked in from other states with transport a quarter of the cost. The plant will move to Yakima Washington where most of those apples come from. Trucking local apples up to Yakima, 800 miles, isn't likely to be worth what it costs. It's the end of an era.

Sonoma County's 101-year-old apple processing plant leaving town

Sonoma County's last and only apple processing plant in Sebastopol is leaving town.

www.ktvu.com

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/towns-scg/manzana-products-sonoma-countys-last-apple-processing-plant-to-close-in/

Direct farm sales? Sales to local small grocers? Are these options?

 

[1Mech]

As luck would have it I just received my WA property tax bill.

Washington tax bill is now over 20k ($20,304.35)

It just might be prohibitively too expensive to leave California after all.

WOW! I have almost a half acre lot in town with a 1230 sq. ft house plus a separate garage out back. I don't remember exactly but my tax bill was in the neighborhood of $14 to $15 hundred. My tax bill on 9.25 acres in city limits in Arkansas was less than $12.00, not twelve hundred, but just twelve dollars!

 

[California]

Direct farm sales? Sales to local small grocers?

Both of those already exist, but that doesn't absorb much volume.

The apple-growing industry here has already declined to maybe a tenth of what it was 50~100 years ago. Farming - dry farming - in this hilly terrain could hardly compete with the efficiency of the flat irrigated orchards at Yakima. It's a case where corporate ag is simply more efficient than these little 'one-horse' farms that supported a farm family a century ago.

My orchard - 8 acres on an 11 acre parcel (the rest is ravine jungle) was last owner-operated in about 1951 after my grandparents bought it as a retirement place. Grandpa's records show payment for a day of discing by a neighbor for example, in their first couple of years here. Then total operation was handed over to a neighbor to operate combined with his adjacent orchard for a single annual payment.

This arrangement (various larger neighbors) has continued through ownership by my father (summer home) and now us (40% of our time is here). I enjoy playing Gentleman Farmer but my role is limited. I water new trees for about 5 years until they are established and bearing, and backhoe out stumps to get ready for replants.

The neighbor contractor sends in his crew for most phases, for example spring pruning is typically 4~6 men for two weeks. Harvest can be two or three phases of 16 men here for 5 days, most of whom live in the contractor's dormitory for the season.

Before insurance costs exploded recently I was about breaking even with property tax and insurance as the major costs, now with no income I'm at risk of being classified as a non tax deductible hobby. I dropped carrying Workmans Comp insurance when the cost went from $125/year to over $1k, and no longer hire help for anything.

This place is like living in a park, there's no way I'm going to follow my (mostly new) neighbors in converting to a sterile boring vineyard.

Some photos I've posted here in the past.

The three vineyards across the canyon replaced apple orchards during the past 25 years.

 

[Sigarms]

Gosh how could I forget the California Lottery?

"The California State Lottery began in October 1985 after voters authorized it in Proposition 37, the California State Lottery Act of 1984....The earnings provide supplementary funding for public education.... The Lottery Act was intended to provide more money to schools without imposing extra taxes. "

I lived in CA when the lottery was marketed to its citizens. There was a strong marketing push with lofty claims to sell it to voters. TV advertisements ran showing children with no books, dilapidated classrooms, etc.

The reality is the CA lottery allows each school district a choice of how to spent the money.

A very close friend of mine is a senior administrator in one of the largest CA school districts in the State. That district decided then (and it continues today) that 100% of the lottery money would be paid to teachers and administrators. None to books and students.

The result was that all teachers and administrators got paid more and many moved up to nicer houses and cars. Then, starting a few years later, more bond measures were floated to "give Johnny books to read and not in a leaky classroom."

NC did the exact same thing around 2006 on how they "pushed" the lottery to to voters.

It's all for the schools!

Funny, right after the lottery got voted in, the state government got involved in scandals with Scientific Games Corp on exactly who was paid what and why. Go figure...

Unlike California, I don't see the money coming in from lottery going to schools or teachers.

In 2022, the NC state lottery brought in 3.88 billion dollars in sales and 930 million dollars went to NC schools. Sounds like a butt load, I get it.

Reality is, after they break down that money, at least the local schools in our rural county really don't see that much money.

Generally teachers get a bad rap, I get it. Have summers off and all the holidays and they are overpaid.

Since becoming involved in our own local schools when our two boys went to school here, I honestly can't say enough about our local teachers. For a college degree going to work, they aren't overpaid (salary range in our county for high school is 38K to 60K). They tend to work long hours, and honestly, with dealing with ALL the kids they have to deal with, I don't see how they don't keep bottles of booze hidden around the school LOL In a all seriousness, at least our local teachers actually care of the kids and they do what they do because they love to teach. I can't speak highly enough of most of our teachers locally.

What I find funny now with NC, now they want to bring in the casinos and legalize other forms of betting. Needless to say, since I nor my wife even remotely like to gamble with our money, I'm just scratching my head over it figuring poititians are looking at the money for themselves.

https://www.legalsportsreport.com/nc/

 

[Sigarms]

Some photos I've posted here in the past.

I'm probably wrong, but the white SUV, is that a 80's Isuzu Trooper?

My buddy had one, and God did I want to buy one because I loved his. Probably wasn't a better vehicle designed for all around outdoor use.

They seemed to go to crap in the 90's.

 

[jyoutz]

NC did the exact same thing around 2006 on how they "pushed" the lottery to to voters.

It's all for the schools!

Funny, right after the lottery got voted in, the state government got involved in scandals with Scientific Games Corp on exactly who was paid what and why. Go figure...

Unlike California, I don't see the money coming in from lottery going to schools or teachers.

In 2022, the NC state lottery brought in 3.88 billion dollars in sales and 930 million dollars went to NC schools. Sounds like a butt load, I get it.

Reality is, after they break down that money, at least the local schools in our rural county really don't see that much money.

Generally teachers get a bad rap, I get it. Have summers off and all the holidays and they are overpaid.

Since becoming involved in our own local schools when our two boys went to school here, I honestly can't say enough about our local teachers. For a college degree going to work, they aren't overpaid (salary range in our county for high school is 38K to 60K). They tend to work long hours, and honestly, with dealing with ALL the kids they have to deal with, I don't see how they don't keep bottles of booze hidden around the school LOL In a all seriousness, at least our local teachers actually care of the kids and they do what they do because they love to teach. I can't speak highly enough of most of our teachers locally.

What I find funny now with NC, now they want to bring in the casinos and legalize other forms of betting. Needless to say, since I nor my wife even remotely like to gamble with our money, I'm just scratching my head over it figuring poititians are looking at the money for themselves.

https://www.legalsportsreport.com/nc/

By law, all of the proceeds from our state’s lottery goes to fund college scholarships for in-state universities for in-state HS graduates. But students have to maintain a certain GPA or they lose the scholarship.

 

[ultrarunner]

Yep... Taxes and Insurance are more than I eran in my day job...

If I didn't have outside income from property management it wouldn't work.

May end up liquidating mom's land adjacent to her home not by desire but the taxes with special assessments plus the annual vegetation management not being able to use gas brush cutters will do me in.

 

[Sigarms]

By law, all of the proceeds from our state’s lottery goes to fund college scholarships for in-state universities for in-state HS graduates. But students have to maintain a certain GPA or they lose the scholarship.

Given the fact that politicians are politicians no matter what state your reside in, I'd be very curious if what you state is accurate. At worst, I'd be curious as to the actual percentage of proceeds are given from the lottery.

In NC, it runs about 25% given to "education" from lottery proceeds.

 

[plowhog]

I honestly can't say enough about our local teachers. For a college degree going to work, they aren't overpaid (salary range in our county for high school is 38K to 60K). They tend to work long hours, and honestly, with dealing with ALL the kids they have to deal with, I don't see how they don't keep bottles of booze hidden around the school LOL

In CA there is a never ending blame game. After receiving years of schooling, Johnny fails math and cannot read. So who is to blame?

Parents blame the schools. Teachers blame the parents.

There becomes a push for testing student achievement to create some sort of measurement or accountability and to root out bad teachers. That is fiercely opposed by the powerful teachers unions, claiming its the bad parents causing poor learning results.

In the rare case where achievement tests actually begin, I have often seen across-the-board failures exposing that not just Johnny is in trouble but the entire class and entire school is. And a common next step is not to implement changes to improve learning, but to lower the scores needed to "pass" the achievement test.

I agree that teaching is a difficult job. In CA, if there is an unruly kid in the classroom, there is little that can be done. And when non-English speaking immigrant children are added to the class their needs (by law) must be attended to and the time invested in that reduces teaching time to English speakers.

btw my friend who is a senior administrator in a school district used to teach 3rd grade. Her salary was around $85k, plus many benefits on top of that. That was as-of 15-20 years ago.

 

[Sigarms]

In CA there is a never ending blame game. After receiving years of schooling, Johnny fails math and cannot read. So who is to blame?

Parents blame the schools. Teachers blame the parents.

There becomes a push for testing student achievement to create some sort of measurement or accountability and to root out bad teachers. That is fiercely opposed by the powerful teachers unions, claiming its the bad parents causing poor learning results.

In the rare case where achievement tests actually begin, I have often seen across-the-board failures exposing that not just Johnny is in trouble but the entire class and entire school is. And a common next step is not to implement changes to improve learning, but to lower the scores needed to "pass" the achievement test.

I agree that teaching is a difficult job. In CA, if there is an unruly kid in the classroom, there is little that can be done. And when non-English speaking immigrant children are added to the class their needs (by law) must be attended to and the time invested in that reduces teaching time to English speakers.

btw my friend who is a senior administrator in a school district used to teach 3rd grade. Her salary was around $85k, plus many benefits on top of that. That was as-of 15-20 years ago.

Like every profession, you have good people and bad people doing jobs. Never will stop being that way.

From personal first hand experience, I honestly can't speak highly enough about our school system because for the most part, the teachers and school administraion involved actually cares about the kids. Reality is we don't have a great "up to date" school system in our rural county to boot.

15 years ago when I thought about changing careers in NC all together, I looked into teaching as the time and investment wouldn't be that hard IMO in our area. Reality is after I looked at the pay scale, I asked myself "why?".