Everglades Boogie

The annual Everglades Boogie was held at the Clewiston Airport this weekend.  It's presented by SkyDive Air Adventures that invites folks from all over to come and, well, jump out of planes all weekend.  There were dozens of jumpers when I stopped by.  They jumped in different formations, styles and heights.  I'll let the pictures do the talking, but it was spectacular seeing 5-10 skydivers filling the clear sky with color.

One last thing, the smoke in some of the pictures was sugar cane fields being burned off, not an accident.

When I think of Florida crops...

Citrus is what comes to mind first when I think of Florida's crops, but there are other crops grown in Florida, and Hendry County as well.  On a recent ride around some farms, I saw a tomato farm that was huge!  Yes, the approx. 4,000 acres of tomatoes grown withers to the approx. 85,000 acres of oranges and 35,000 acres of sugarcane, but for a non-citrus crop it's pretty substanstanial.  Below are several pictures of the tomato farm I saw, and saw, and saw.  I was told these rows went on for two miles. That's ALOT of ketchup!! To see the precision of how the plastic was laid (by a machine) to protect the young plants to the "finished product" stages was quite educational.

We did ride through some orange groves and that's a pretty common site. But I saw some new trees in the ground and was curious why there was tin foil around the trunks.  I was told it was to keep the trees from sprouting new growth below a certain point on the trunk. Hmmm, this old man can still learn a thing or two.

In 2008, Florida ranked first in the United States in the value of production of oranges, grapefruit, tangerines, sugarcane for sugar and seed, squash, watermelons, sweet corn, fresh-market snap beans, fresh-market tomatoes, and fresh-market cucumbers.

Florida ranked second in the United States in the value of production of strawberries, bell peppers, and cucumbers for pickles.

Florida ranked fourth in the value of production of honey. Bet you've learned something, too.

The Golden Answer

OK, for all you who've been dying to know the answer to the question posed in the last post, here it is.
I had mentioned that while touring the Clewiston Inn lounge (Yes, I was TOURING) that it houses a 360 degree mural of Florida's fauna and flora. And within that mural is one animal that doesn't belong.

Are you ready??  (Drum Roll).....It's this little guy, the Golden Mantled Ground Squirrel!

Some refer it to a chipmunk on steroids but it really is a squirrel (sorry Alvin). There are none of this species in Florida, but I think I see his cousins around Christmas time every year singing about a hoola-hoop!!
See how much you can learn in Hendry County, Florida! It's amazing, now go be the life of the party with that bit of trivia!

Clewiston Inn's Everglades Lounge

As promised, more on the Clewiston Inn. It was built by the US Sugar Corp. (then called Southern Sugar) to house visiting dignitaries in 1926 but fire destroyed it. It was rebuilt in 1938 in its classical revival style. A highlight of the Inn is the Everglades Lounge, best known for its artsy wall mural.  The 360-degree mural depicts flora and fauna of the Florida Everglades. J. Clinton Shepherd painted his unique depiction in the early 1940s. A couple of bits of trivia...In the picture where you see lilly pads, there once were frogs, but a young Royal Air Force cadet extinguished a cigarette on the painting which had to be retouched and the frogs weren't replaced.  Another question for trivia pursuit...which animal isn't part of this region and doesn't belong in the mural? (Hint, it's in the 7th picture).

It really is a work of art that has to be seen in person to be appreciated.  Oh yeah, the answer to the trivia question will be in the next post. But feel free to make guesses.