Mandarins are the 'orange pearls' of Placer

'Tis the season, for mandarins are here! The foothill sunshine grows many things — grapes for wineries, veggies to laden tables at the Foothill Farmers' Market, that cash crop that adds a pungent whiff to the smell of fall — but themandarins are orange pearls the Powers That Be themselves must eat, for how else could there exist such sweet, juice-squirting orbs of good health? Humans don't come up with such wonders; only the Divine does.This could well be my last Placer mandarin season, a fact I lay tuck away other than in my commitment to eating 10 (at least!) mandarins a day. Citrus en general will be lacking for me in Tennessee; leaving California means sayinggoodbye to such luxuries as plucking Meyer lemons straight from the tree, a ritual for the homiest medicinal hot toddy. There also won't be grapefruits swelling to such abundance that neighbors put them roadside in boxes marked "free," like they do here, sending me diving in a deep pool of fresh pressed vitamin C.No citrus, and no pot. Tennessee has legalized industrial hemp, but not cannabis. There's certainly a thriving underground market, but as a connoisseur millennial, I hold my pinky up buying local and organic, or pretentiously frugal and self-sufficient (legally) growing my own. Here in the foothills I cycle by trees bejeweled with pomegranates. I see naked trees hung with plump persimmon ornaments. There are leftover wild grapes of the season to snack on while strolling the neighborhood, remaining figs to be scrounged up, an abandoned pear tree to pillage. Anyone else know that secret 100-year-old orchards near Alta, with a rare apple that grows bark on the outside of it? So much bounty in comparison to what's coming: corn, tomatoes, tobacco,corn. Ag town for ag town, they're nothing the same.The produce won't be as good, but I'll enjoy the swap of other things. For example, I won't miss the KB Home-style communities that keep bowling over heritage oaks and devouring open landscapes. Has anyone seen what is happening off the 193 by Lincoln? No thank you! Give me to the land of trailers parked under tin roofs, where the only big buildings are the chicken houses.Though scary truth is that's only for now. Every small, rural community keeps succumbing to sprawl, sending people like me fleeing for affordability and solitude, the paradox being that the fleer, in turn, becomes the crowd invasion and force of gentrification somewhere else. I'm about to be just another noxious California refugee, the bane of other states like Montana, Wyoming and Oregon.What can I do, besides changing my ID and accent, to make sure Bledsoe County residents will forgive me?Maybe I can bribe them to love me with the gift of Placer County mandarins. Meriwether Blume lives on the outskirts of Newcastle. Contact Blume at meriwether@protonmail.com.