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Every year they burn sugarcane right across the street from where we live before harvesting it.   In South Florida, near Lake Okeechobee, sugarcane is grown commercially for the production of crystal or “white” sugar.  In years past, sugarcane was hand-harvested, using cane knives. Conversion to mechanical harvesting began in the mid-1980s, and by 1993 the entire South Florida sugarcane crop was harvested mechanically.  Fields are burned immediately before harvest. The fires are rather scary, but only last a short time; a 40-acre field burns in 15-20 minutes. Burning is done only in the daytime (through a permitting process with the Florida Division of Forestry), and only when dispersal of the smoke by air currents causes minimum nuisance.  After the sugarcane fields are burned, mechanical harvesters deposit the cut cane directly into field wagons. Four-wheel drive tractors haul 16 tons of cane out of the field with each four-wagon load. At special ramps near the field, the cane is dumped from the wagon into highway trailers or rail cars for transport to the mills. Rail cars carry 25-30 tons each. Highway trailers carry 20 tons per load.

First, I’ll show you photos from them burning the sugarcane yesterday across the street from my house.

The birds quickly evacuate the burning fields:

Yesterday they didn’t start cutting the sugarcane immediately after they burned it like they usually do.  For some reason they got a late start.  So they cut throughout the night.  Luckily it was so cold last night that we DIDN’T have our windows open, or else the noise from all those machines would have surely kept us awake!  I left the house this morning before the sun came up so I wasn’t able to get any photos of them harvesting, but I do have shots from years past…here’s a few of those:

What’ you’re viewing in the photo below is my front fence and gate.  You can see a man there on a trailer and he’s got something in his hand, it’s like a blow torch and he’s setting the sugarcane on fire as they drive by.

Here’s one of the trucks that go up and down the street to keep an eye on the fires as they are burning:

Here you can see one of the large machines that cut the sugarcane, dumping it into a trailer pulled by a tractor:

And another view:

This area is not near my house, but closer to town…here you can see a tractor pulling trailers full of fresh cut sugarcane to be loaded into train cars:

This train is taking a load of sugarcane to the mill in Clewiston, Florida:

Here’s what the sugarcane looks like before it’s cut:

I really like the cane before it’s burned and cut, it’s actually quite pretty!   Here’s a photo I took on December 31st, looking from my front gate across the street to the sugarcane:

Hard to believe that the photo above and the photo below are of the same place, huh?

This past Saturday we met up with a few other photographers at Shark Valley in the Everglades National Park and had a great time.   I shot photos with the Canon 50D and also the Canon AE-1 Program and Diana Mini (those photos have yet to be developed).  Here’s some of the shots from the 50D and Canon 100-400mm f4/5.6 USM IS L.

Anhinga babies, the first babies I’ve seen this year…they’re just so cute when they are little!

Also we took a ride down Loop Road. The road conditions were horrible. You could still drive a car or truck down the road, but with the recent rains there was so much standing water and the road hasn’t been graded in a very long time. Needless to say it was a very uncomfortable ride! At the very end of the road, it started to get smoother and we were able to drive a bit faster. I saw something in the road and at first was thinking it was maybe a stick…but I wasn’t sure…so I backed the truck up and upon closer inspection (seeing his head raised and the colors underneath) I realized it was a baby water moccasin. So I got out and shot some photos of it, at a safe distance of course…He was maybe a foot long, so he was pretty tiny!

Friday afternoon I loaded up my bag for a day trip to the Everglades and I figured I’d take a picture of everything I was bringing with me….

In the photo above is:  BW400CN black and white film, color film, Canon AE-1 Program with Canon FD 50mm 1.8 lens, sunglasses, Canon 100mm 2.8 macro, Diana Mini, Canon 50mm 1.4, Canon 18-55mm, iphone, and 50D with 100-400mm f4/5.6 USM IS L lens attached.

Oh, and the dog snooping around

Photo above is my Lowepro backpack with the back compartment loaded with:  Canon 50D and 100-400mm f4/5.6 USM IS L lens, the 50mm 1.4 and the 18-55mm.  Also I use the Blackrapid strap on the 50D.