Stomp rockets, Family Home Evening and sugar cane harvest

 Two grown men and a stomp rocket!  This stadium had a roof that we could stand under.  If I jumped high and came down hard with both feet, I could make the rocket hit the roof.  It's kind of fun to have a goal and reach it.

 Kevin Diaz is one of my favorite kids here.  He waits for us to come, comes out smiling to help us bring things in, and helps us into the car when we're done, then the family stands and waves us out of sight.  We were just celebrating being together.  Today Rod and I went to their house for dinner and to make snickerdoodles.  It was a fun day.  I didn't communicate well, because I brought fish for everyone and she'd already cooked a whole dinner.  Wow! how do I miss so much?

 We gave them a Family Home Evening manual and had  the first one to show them how.  This is the grandmother being the "Tree of life, from Lehi's dream in the Book of Mormon.  Our stomp rocket turned into the iron rod. 

A new fruit.  This one is a cereza which I always thought was the word for cherries.  This fruit has the three seeds inside it and is pretty sour.
Here is a quote I'm using. "Don't weep because it is over, Rejoice because it happened."  "No lloren porque se ha terminado, Alégrense porque sucedió." (Guess who said it.  Answer at end of blog.)  It is my feelings upon leaving this area.  We all knew it wouldn't be forever, and I wouldn't want it to be because I miss my family, but it has been good, and we have people to love that we didn't know before.  I love the Savior.  He has truly blessed my life.

 I decided that since I had little else this week, this might be the week to share the sugar cane harvest.  Notice above, the ash that falls (for about 5 months) from burning the leaves on the cane fields.

 This field is across a 4 lane from us and was the best picture we got, but there would be big plumes of dark smoke frequently over about a 40 mile stretch of highway.  They sometimes irrigate so they use flat land for the sugar cane.

 These are two of the harvesters.  They seem to windrow and then use these to lift into field transports drawn by tractor.  We didn't see it, but it appears they often take the cane to loading yards for placing in trucks.  (We would see the field transports on the highways at time heading to common destinations.)  Sometimes trucks are directly loaded.


The video was taken of a crew gathering cane (missed by initial harvest) into piles for eventual loading onto trucks.  We had pulled off to the side of the 4 lane (pan-american highway), but they were working in the center on the drainage system, so had blocked off one of the lanes.  We are listening to conference, but you will note that we get advised to move on and not be a menace to other travelers.  We don't count this one as one of the 9 times we were stopped by traffic police for violations, as we were already stopped.  No tickets yet.

 We picked up a cane that fell off a truck 8-10 feet long and a bit sooty.   It is pretty stiff -- useful for sword fights (in dirty clothes).

 This was very disappointing -- not very sweet.

 Tough to bite into and unsatisfactory, maybe green it is better.

 Most trucks aren't loaded so carefully by hand, but this one looked like someone aligned each cane, placing to maximize space.

 Here are some empty field transports, looks like they are built locally, perhaps on the large farm.  We estimated that they must have been harvesting 20-40,000 acres for this one factory.

 Here is hand harvesting on the burned over field, that which was missed by the mechanized crew.  The machetes must be pretty sharp and the cane is tough.

This guy has been in the soot a bit much for me.

Here is a shot ready to grow again.  The first fields to be harvested were already 2-3 feet high when the last ones finished.

Answer:  Dr Seuss