PEACE ON THE ROAD
Winter In The Land Of Fire And Smoke
April 12, 2006
Changing the life style like I have has brought a lot of “Firsts” for me. There are so many that it would be impossible to list. Obviously there are the, “First time I saw – list of hundreds of things”, “First time I did – list of hundreds of things.” I plan for that type of first to keep on happening. There are a few that I hope to never do a second time but maybe I won’t tell you those, except I hope I never again have to replace the dryer duct on our washer/dryer. One first that sort of startled me when I thought of it was the first time in my life I have spent an entire season in a state that I did not see snow or freezing weather. I have spent the entire winter in Florida with no snow and a low temperature of 41 or 42, and only a few mornings below 55. It has been the first time in my life that I have gone entirely through winter and never wore long pants except on Sunday when I went to church. One thing I assure you is that I have liked not seeing the snow.
There are a lot of things that are talked about in Florida. People talk about the beaches, palm trees, alligators, the citrus and other produce and the sun and the hurricanes. I do not recall anyone ever mentioning the cattle, and I think they have as many as Texas. In a Texas pasture it takes numerous acres to support one cow. In a Florida pasture there is a cow or more per acre. I have been very surprised by the number. I also think that every cow must have a cattle egret to catch the bugs it stirs up. But one thing I have never heard people talk about, except on the news, is the fires and therefore the smoke. Right now one of the big things on the news is the fire danger and reports of the countryside blazes. But ignore the brush fires and there is still a lot of fire and smoke. It is rare that we go out and do not see a couple smoke plumes rising into the air. Every time an orchard is pruned or bulldozed down to put in housing they burn the trees. And I guarantee you that a lot of orchards are being bulldozed for houses and then new land is being bulldozed to put in orchards. The brush and trees in any land clearing for new orchards or houses is burned too. There is a lot of wood from buildings and trees that the hurricanes destroyed that is being burned. But likely the biggest source of fire and smoke is the burning of the sugar cane fields. So I say that Florida is THE LAND OF FIRE AND SMOKE.
Before a sugar cane field is harvested it is burned. The burning removes the leaves of the cane. Then harvesters cut the cane at ground level and chop the stalks into short lengths. The shorts lengths of cane are transferred to small tractor pulled hoppers, then to semi trucks that go to the sugar factory or to a sugar train that will go to the factory. I hear that some of the factories can only accept cane from the train. After the sugar is extracted from the cane the residue is burned to produce electricity. The factories produce more electricity than it uses, so it sells the excess electricity to the power company. Also the sugar factories may start burning the trees and other hurricane debris to produce additional electricity. I have not been close to a sugar cane fire yet, but I have some pictures that were taken this year by a new friend, Robert Lathrop, who has been trying to get close to one for 10 years. I feel rather privileged that he was willing to share with me. I have gotten some good pictures from new friends. As you might guess, many of the cane field fires are back away from the main roads and so the time to be at the right place at exactly the right time for good photos is rather limited.
Winter In The Land Of Fire And Smoke
April 12, 2006
Changing the life style like I have has brought a lot of “Firsts” for me. There are so many that it would be impossible to list. Obviously there are the, “First time I saw – list of hundreds of things”, “First time I did – list of hundreds of things.” I plan for that type of first to keep on happening. There are a few that I hope to never do a second time but maybe I won’t tell you those, except I hope I never again have to replace the dryer duct on our washer/dryer. One first that sort of startled me when I thought of it was the first time in my life I have spent an entire season in a state that I did not see snow or freezing weather. I have spent the entire winter in Florida with no snow and a low temperature of 41 or 42, and only a few mornings below 55. It has been the first time in my life that I have gone entirely through winter and never wore long pants except on Sunday when I went to church. One thing I assure you is that I have liked not seeing the snow.
There are a lot of things that are talked about in Florida. People talk about the beaches, palm trees, alligators, the citrus and other produce and the sun and the hurricanes. I do not recall anyone ever mentioning the cattle, and I think they have as many as Texas. In a Texas pasture it takes numerous acres to support one cow. In a Florida pasture there is a cow or more per acre. I have been very surprised by the number. I also think that every cow must have a cattle egret to catch the bugs it stirs up. But one thing I have never heard people talk about, except on the news, is the fires and therefore the smoke. Right now one of the big things on the news is the fire danger and reports of the countryside blazes. But ignore the brush fires and there is still a lot of fire and smoke. It is rare that we go out and do not see a couple smoke plumes rising into the air. Every time an orchard is pruned or bulldozed down to put in housing they burn the trees. And I guarantee you that a lot of orchards are being bulldozed for houses and then new land is being bulldozed to put in orchards. The brush and trees in any land clearing for new orchards or houses is burned too. There is a lot of wood from buildings and trees that the hurricanes destroyed that is being burned. But likely the biggest source of fire and smoke is the burning of the sugar cane fields. So I say that Florida is THE LAND OF FIRE AND SMOKE.
Before a sugar cane field is harvested it is burned. The burning removes the leaves of the cane. Then harvesters cut the cane at ground level and chop the stalks into short lengths. The shorts lengths of cane are transferred to small tractor pulled hoppers, then to semi trucks that go to the sugar factory or to a sugar train that will go to the factory. I hear that some of the factories can only accept cane from the train. After the sugar is extracted from the cane the residue is burned to produce electricity. The factories produce more electricity than it uses, so it sells the excess electricity to the power company. Also the sugar factories may start burning the trees and other hurricane debris to produce additional electricity. I have not been close to a sugar cane fire yet, but I have some pictures that were taken this year by a new friend, Robert Lathrop, who has been trying to get close to one for 10 years. I feel rather privileged that he was willing to share with me. I have gotten some good pictures from new friends. As you might guess, many of the cane field fires are back away from the main roads and so the time to be at the right place at exactly the right time for good photos is rather limited.
FIRE IN A FLORIDA SUGAR CANE FIELD
picture courtesy of Robert Lathrop
Robert estimated that these flames might have reached one hundred foot. The fields are fired around the entire edges and burns into the center and then burns it self out. The cycle of growth and harvest can be done four of five years before it is necessary to replant the field. The replanting is done with short lengths of cane instead of seed. Seed is only used to produce new varieties of sugar cane. Within two days of writing this we saw a cane field fire next to Moore Haven. Then there were three fires within three blocks of our campground in the next two days. I was not able to get very close to any. It is amazing how much noise the fire makes and how fast it burns. The whole fire in a large cane field may only last thirty to sixty minutes. The pictures of Robert Lathrop are still a lot better than I was able to get.
My idea of how other things are harvested has been changed somewhat also. In part of the summer of 1955 when I was in Oregon I went to the bean field to pick green beans by hand. Here they combine all the beans in a single pass, there is not a second picking. The plants are gone. Because I have seen several places that sold picking ladders and have seen numerous ladders propped up against trees I presumed that workers climbed ladders and grabbed each orange individually and then put it in a bag. We have only seen one picker using that method. While some is done that way it is not the only way.
One place we saw several workers picking up oranges off the ground, putting them in a bag across their shoulder and then emptying the bags into large tubs that could hold a thousand pounds of oranges. A special loader picks up the tubs and transfers the oranges into the semi trailers. We have seen a lot of semi truckloads at the edge of the orchards, but no pickers, they are usually out of sight in the orchard. While I was photographing the workers picking the oranges from the ground, I was hearing “whack-whack-whack” in the orchard. That was the sound of a worker up a ladder hitting the orange tree with a long pole and knocking the oranges to the ground. I guess that if the oranges are made into juice a little bruising does not hurt them.
You have all driven down a road and had your car filled with some overwhelming aroma. Usually it was some undesirable odor from a feedlot or other stinky area. We have come into areas that were just the opposite. We were near Plant City where the desirable scent strawberry plants was so strong it was almost undesirable. Around eighty some percent of all the winter strawberries in the USA come from the area around Plant City. We have also been in areas that the scent of blooming Jasmine could be detected for blocks. There are many places that the scent of orange blossoms is nearly overpowering. Unlike apples and peaches, oranges put forth their blossoms at just about the same time that the fruit is ready to harvest. So from about December to May there will be some areas that have oranges of different varieties blooming. The nearest orange orchard to our camp is several blocks away. We have had days that the scent filled our Vectra, and that was sure pleasant.
ORANGE BLOSSOMS AND ORANGES READY FOR PICKING
It has been rather funny to see some of the signs that have been placed by people in various places. There is also a sign on the door of the campground clubhouse that says, “SHIRTS AND SHOES MUST BE WORN.” I guess that we are not allowed to wear new shirts or shoes inside. Perhaps it would be okay to wear a pair of new pants.
It has been rather funny to see some of the signs that have been placed by people in various places. There is also a sign on the door of the campground clubhouse that says, “SHIRTS AND SHOES MUST BE WORN.” I guess that we are not allowed to wear new shirts or shoes inside. Perhaps it would be okay to wear a pair of new pants.
WHAT A CONCEPT
WHICH CAME FIRST THE SIGN OR THE RACK
ENTER WHAT
THIS MUST BE MY SIGN
Keeping in touch with the world has become easier for us. There have been several places that a connection to the Internet was difficult at best or even nonexistent. We have gotten a PC phone card that eliminates the hassle. Many people have touted WiFi as the solution to web access, and I figured that they were correct. But we have found that WiFi access is sometimes non-existent, often expensive, and you may have to sit in a restaurant or other uncomfortable, non-private place, or it is available miles away during limited business hours. Many places with only a phone connection available, limit access time to ten or fifteen minutes because there are often others that want to use the phone line The PC card allows us access any time day or night, for as long or as little as we want. It has already eliminated a lot of frustration in our lives. I am always amazed at how much there is that we can do on the web and how much there is to learn. Now I may get on the web several times a day for between a couple of minutes and over an hour.
We will be in Florida for another one to three weeks and then we are going to work our way north to new adventures, new sights, and new highways. We do not know where we are going next or when we will be there. We just know that it will somewhere that we have not been before or some special place that we enjoyed the first time.
Happy Easter everybody! I am hoping the Easter Bunny brings me hard boiled eggs, Erma wants jelly beans, Helen wants chocolate eggs, and Paris our cat hopes the bunny has limp that slows it down. Hope you get what you want from the Easter Bunny.
Till Later This Is Doug Of
PEACE ON THE ROAD
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