We journeyed to an unlikely place for our prune story: the Abbey of New Clairvaux in the Northern California town of Vina. This order is one of the very few orders - possibly the only one nowadays - that makes most of its living through agriculture. The monks are faithful to the original idea of the order: to live off the land by the labor of your hands. The monks here raise about 145 acres of French prune plums, as well as walnuts and row crops. Last year, they harvested 750-800 "green" tons of prune plums. That's the fruit as it comes off the tree. From here, the prune plums are trucked to the Sunsweet processing facility in nearby Corning. The fruit is washed, sorted and dried in commercial dehydrators. The prunes end up in a variety of products, from packaged prunes to juice to prune puree, which is used as a fat substitute in baked goods. Prunes aren't native to North America. The story goes that a Frenchman came to California to find gold. He didn't. But he did strike it rich here -- with prunes. Now, almost all domestic prunes are grown in the Golden State. In fact, California produces about 70% of the world's prunes. Prunes have a reputation for being a food for older folks. The prune industry is out to change that. They are making a push to get the younger generation to try prunes. That could lead to a big demand for more prunes and that's just fine with the Abbey of New Clairvaux. The monks here will faithfully provide them. For more information about the Abbey of New Clairvaux, check out their Web page at http://www.maxinet.com/trappist/index.html. For more information about prunes, go to the California Prune Board's Web page at http://www.prunes.org. And if you would like information about this year's California Prune Festival, keep an eye on the Web site at http://www.syix.com/yubacity/prunefestival.html. If you have questions or comments about this story, please E-mail Producer Christine Tanaka at ctanaka@kvie.org.