BLOSSOMS OPEN ONTO HISTORY OF THE RISE AND FALL OF ALMONDS.

Byline: Karen Thacker Community Columnist

February's flooding may have brought its share of problems to this growing town, but the water and warmer temperatures have also brought out the almond blossoms in time for the annual Almond Blossom Festival this weekend.

Granted the almond crop is virtually nonexistent these days, but the trees can be found sprinkled around town in front of homes and businesses, with a great flowering coming from homes near Lane Park, the site of the 49th annual festival.

``The almond blossoms are out with all the rain we've had,'' said festival chairwoman Melanie Marriott. ``And a lot of neighborhoods still have them in their front yards.''

Thousands of acres of almond trees covered the Quartz Hill area 49 years ago when Jane Eastman started the first Almond Blossom Festival as a way to celebrate the first signs of spring.

Now the title carries on as a tradition, but the blossoms are fewer and harder to find since the orchards fell victim to insects, disease, development and the cost of irrigation.

``The pests got so bad and the costs so high,'' said Francis Godde, whose family farmed thousands of acres in Quartz Hill for years, ``it cut us off, right at the knees.''

As development made its way into the crop fields, lots were easily subdivided, and homes took over.

During the years of prosperous almond tree growth, Don Raven and his partner Walter Biri started an almond confectionary business called Rancho Raviri in 1954.

``We wanted to do something with the almonds here,'' Raven said. ``Before we came they were all shipped to Sacramento.''

Nonpariel and drake almonds were the main types grown, with some Jordan, he said.

The blossoms were not only a beautiful sight but a signal that the new crop was on its way.

In the ``old days,'' when the almonds became ripe each September, harvesters used mallets to hit the tree limbs, knocking loose the nuts.

``When they are ripe they just drop off like icicles,'' Raven said.

The harvesters then raked the nuts up or collected them from tarps laid under the trees. Machinery eventually came along to shake the trees free of the nuts.

Despite the lack of local almonds, Rancho Raviri still makes the specialty almonds in Quartz Hill (the nuts now come from Modesto), and will be on hand for sale at the festival, which continues today at Lane Park, 5520 W. Ave. L-8.

The demise of the orchards in Quartz Hill began in the early 1960s, when the trees began catching a disease called golden death or scorched leaf, spread from tree to tree by insects and pruning shears, according to a brief history written by almond rancher Jim Godde.

Within eight years, 40 percent to 50 percent of Quartz Hill's trees were dead or diseased. The only way to fight the disease was to eliminate the infected trees.

Then the 1976-78 drought wiped out a lot of the ranchers who counted on rain for irrigation.