By handling the plant we become coated in its scent, and the smell is mysterious. We pluck the mugwort by breaking the stems at the base with a quick twist of the wrist to leave the root undamaged. When we come to harvest in May the mugwort stretches tall and boisterous, with noble posture and expressive leaves, deeply lobed like fingers.
![california juniper california juniper](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6ce510_01231206e5334707abd0abb947d092e2~mv2_d_4032_1960_s_2.jpg)
It grows fast and strong in great bushes as winter eases and the days start to grow longer. We’ve watched the mugwort grow back each year, rising around the stalks of last year’s bloom. We have developed a relationship with this place, the land, and the plants that grow on it. Like most of the places where Juniper Ridge harvests, we’ve been working on this land for years in partnership with the landowners who operate an array of vineyards and citrus orchards. Even while sweating, crouched in the dry scratchy chaparral, we could almost feel that great irrigated expanse of growing food stretched behind us as our backdrop. The tension in this place was alleviated by the rich green agricultural quilt of vineyards and fields of vegetables filling the nearby Salinas Valley. But intermixed in the brush is such a variety of beautiful fragrant foliage, with the sweet smells of Hummingbird Sage ( Salvia spathacea) and California Sagebrush ( Artemisia californica) thick in the air along with the mugwort.
![california juniper california juniper](https://plantmaster.com/PlantMaster/FullSize/25614a.jpg)
With the clawing coarse brush too thick to allow passage, the toxic plants and venomous animals, and the baking sun, the landscape in these hills can feel hostile. The snakes made sure that we knew that we were the guests on their land, and so we stepped and collected with care and humility. We found two more sheltering in a wide hole just waiting to be stepped on.
![california juniper california juniper](https://calphotos.berkeley.edu/imgs/512x768/0000_0000/0909/1676.jpeg)
From a bush, another rattled at Austin, one of our harvesters, as he was reaching for a clump of mugwort. Pablo found a young one curled in a drainage ditch along the road immediately upon our arrival. Our anxiety was compounded by the thriving population of Western Rattlesnakes ( Crotalus viridis) that steward that land.