PC Highway 1 at Watsonville, 6:00 am

Fog so low it kisses the artichoke blooms, hovers over a snaking traffic jam of field workers, white school busses off-load into the mist. Straw hats tied under chins, wide brims double as dew shields in the grey of morning yet ready for sunburst. Backpacks of water, lunches wrapped in white paper, clippers in pockets or hanging from belts. A Peregine Falcon warms on a lamppost’s fading nightlight, likely irked by morning’s commotion now a crop duster copter, glass bubble cockpit for one, drops horizontal between mist and field like a dragon fly robot with arms to spray poison vapor, just before the pickers choose their first row.

what cost to grow food

permanent fallow starves

fieldworkers falcons