Chaffin Family Orchards spans 2000 acres in Oroville, and is just a stone fruit's throw away from Table Mountain.  Turn of the century olive groves line the main road to the property, and as we drove in, I almost expected to be greeted by men in suspenders and women wearing floor length skirts, just like the old days. 
      As we pulled up to the main house at the ranch, regular folks in blue jeans were hauling crates of freshly picked peaches into a garage that had been turned into a store.  The store is open seven days a week and has a drop by honor system for anyone to come and pick up fresh eggs, fruits, olive oil, or even whole chickens wrapped and ready to go, out of the freezer.
      "Finding the cash people leave is like an Easter egg hunt,"  said Chris Kerston.  There is a collection box, but sometimes he'll find a wad of cash in the freezer in place of a chicken, or tucked under a fruit crate.
      Chris has been working as the marketing director for the farm since November, but has been ranching cattle, sheep and hogs for the last 6 years. 
      "The cool thing about working on the farm is, no matter what your title is, you're always gonna get dirty," he said.
      Chris left the conventional farming ways because he wanted to learn more about sustainable farming.
      "Just reading about it wasn't doing it for me," he said.
      Now, some of his duties include maintaining the booth at the Farmer's Market on Saturdays and giving tours of the orchard, mostly to groups of schoolchildren, or families.
       He said commercial farming taught us to see everything as the same-a peach is a peach, no matter where it came from, and beef is beef.  It is the consumer's responsibility to learn where their food is coming from.
      "If you can know the differences, you're being a hands-on environmental activist," he said. 
      Chaffin Family Orchard's environmental activism runs rampant throughout the land.
      " Ever since they started running the livestock through the orchards, they've cut about 80% of their fuel costs," Chris said.
      They're not burning oil, and they are feeding the cattle, goats, sheep and chicken fresh greens from the land.  The animals are moved around the property, so they are consistently being fed fresh food.
      The sheep maintain the citrus and stone fruit groves because they are the most gentle grazers, and don't harm the bark on the trees. The chickens help clean the orchards by eating the larvae that would otherwise eat the fruit, and they put nitrogen back into the soil.
      "They provide a nice, even blast of nitrogen, which is a really sustainable way of maintaining the soil," said Chris.
      The goats' turf is mainly the olive orchards because they are great at climbing into the trees and pruning them.  There are also goats up at the top of the property, which Chris called the "firebreak."  He said the National Resources Conservation Service helped purchase some goats as part of a land improvement grant.  The goats help clear away invasive saplings and dry brush.  Chris said they eat up to 8 feet high.  These precautions should be especially helpful during the summer months to come.   
      As we headed back down toward the main house, I felt overwhelmed with reverence for a place I hardly knew existed.  Sure, I bought my half dozen eggs from the Co-op because the label read, "Eggs from Happy Hens Living on Clean Native Pasture," but not until seeing the hens bopping around the orchard did I realize how lucky we, as a community, are that farms like this still exist.