Another busy day...

I stayed busy again today with a very special graduation and then to a "Cane Grinding" event.

First the graduation; a young lady named Allycia graduated from Phoenix House which is a center that deals with addiction. I saw so many beautiful young faces that were happy to be graduating from a long hard road of addiction to a new life. They still have a difficult road ahead but I've "adopted" Allycia so that she has someone to talk to and guide her in the right direction.

Second event I went to was a "Cane Grinding" at the Deerfield Farm north of Ocala, FL. My grandfather would grow Sugar Cane and had a grinder pulled by a mule. It was a difficult process. They would boil the juice from the sugar cane to reduce it into syrup. The process I saw today replaces the mule but that's about all.

The sugar cane is fed into a grinder and the juice goes into a vat. From the vat it goes to the boiler. The blip for today is the boiler that cooks out the water and turns it into syrup. It is so good especially on a fresh hot biscuit. Here is a video I took of the guy cooking the cane into syrup.
Cane Boiling

The lady at the Deerfield Farm house gave me a tour that was filled with history and antiques that truly gave me chills. A hutch made from the boards of the old "homestead" built in 1867. The boards were never painted again so the hutch paint is from 1867 and it was beautiful. The Christmas tree on the front porch was decorated only with "stuff" from the farm. There's dried oranges, grapefruit, gourds and wildflowers all over it.

More images on my Blipfolio Here.

We bought cane syrup for friends and family that was so fresh the bottles were too hot to touch. I'll be going back tomorrow for more photos and history.

Before I left the farm, I watched piglets suckling on Mama Pig but then they started getting out of the pig pen. I herded them back into the pen and told the owners about them getting out. They said "that's OK, they've been getting out all day and the kids love chasing them." Reminds me of my childhood.