Pidduck barn, art studio on Hospice home and barn tour March 12

Cross green Bridge Road, spanning Santa Paula Creek, for a dramatic entrance to the 80-acre Santa Paula Creek Ranch that Richard and Gail Pidduck have farmed for 28 years.

The bridge, which used to cross the creek on Santa Paula’s Main Street, was moved to its current location off Santa Paula-Ojai Road just north of Mupu School in the 1930s or 1940s by the county of Ventura

The Pidduck barn and art studio are among four stops in Santa Paula on March 12, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., as part of the Barns, Ranches and Homes tour of Santa Clara Valley Hospice/Home Support Group Inc. The $25 cost of the tour also includes a barbecue from noon to 2 p.m. at the picnic area of Limoneira Co. on Cummings Road. (Cost is $30 if tickets are purchased the day of the tour.)

One can easily appreciate where artist Gail finds inspiration for her famed paintings, many of which are created in her art studio. It is also where the couple carry on a family tradition, with Richard a fourth-generation Ventura County farmer and Gail a third-generation.

On Richard’s side, there are several prominent farming families: the Pidduck family who still farm in south Oxnard, and the Kimball and Duval families who farmed in the west Saticoy area. Gail hails from the Lindsay family who farmed west of Santa Paula.

Successful farming takes a combination of “luck, science and art,” Richard said. “It’s about risk management, and you can never stop learning. You’re always trying to intensify the productivity of your crops. You can’t grow land, so you have to use it more efficiently.” And, today, ag is a global business, Richard said. Farming has changed considerably since his parents, grandparents and “greats” worked the land. Now, if growers want to succeed, Richard said, “they have to be confident dealing with change, be forward-thinking.”

The payoff is the same today, though, as yesterday. “There are enormous quality-of-life benefits if you enjoy living in the country, which we do love,” Richard said. “I love being out in the orchards. For me, it’s not really work. Growing food is an intrinsically valuable and rewarding profession.”

The road to the Pidduck barn winds left from the bridge for about three-quarters of a mile, past Gail’s studio, other ranch houses and the Pidduck home tucked into a hill. On either side of the road are 10,000 avocado and citrus trees planted on the canyon floor, from one side to the other, with Santa Paula Creek a chasm running through it.

The pioneer Rafferty family owned the then-160-acre ranch since the late 1800s and divided and sold it in the 1970s. The Pidducks acquired the property in 1983 and there raised their three children, now grown: Will, Nate and Megan. These days, it is frequently visited by their two young grandsons, Laird and Rafe. Richard jokes that he spent his whole life trying to steer his children away from farming, but wasn’t very successful, as his eldest son, Will, is a farm manager and Nate is interested in agriculture, too.

A modern-day farmer is “always looking ahead,” Richard said, “but change doesn’t come quickly when growing trees.”

Originally, the ranch’s main crops were oranges and lemons, with few avocados. Since then, the oranges have gone, most of the orchards replaced, with avocados taking up 40 percent of the ranch and the rest lemons and a growing number of mandarins. With proper care and market success, most of the trees will be productive for about 30 to 40 years, Richard estimated.

Signs will guide visitors to the four-bay green metal barn, which was built in 2005. Along with housing all the ranch equipment, the barn is Richard’s office -- a hub of agricultural activity that extends from Santa Paula Creek Ranch to the county, state and beyond. Richard runs far more than his ranch. Among his many responsibilities, he is board chair of Saticoy Lemon Association, the largest lemon shipper in Ventura County; president of the U.S. Citrus Science Council, a citrus industry trade association; board member of Index Fresh, an avocado shipper; board chair of the Canyon Irrigation Co.; chairman emeritus of the California Agricultural Leadership Foundation; and past president of the Ventura County Farm Bureau.

Ten years ago, Richard helped lead the U.S. Citrus Science Council in a fight against the U.S. Department of Agriculture to keep lemons from Argentina out of the U.S on the basis of phyto-sanitary threats, an action that saved the lemon industry untold millions of dollars.

In his barn, Richard extends his reach from behind an old green metal desk -- the only desk he has ever used. He first sat at it in the barn of his grandfather, Eugene Kimball, on Kimball Road, where he worked in the family agricultural services business, Kimball Toppers Inc. In the 1970s, the company and Richard’s desk moved to Corporation Street in Santa Paula. When Richard left the family business in 1993 to farm full time, the desk moved with him to the Limoneira building off 10th Street, where, Richard recalled, the office was so small, the door barely cleared the desk.