Stay in Florida
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Click on the back button of your browser or click here to see the previous page in this series. Click on any of the little pictures to see it full size (as big as it goes).| My cousin Anne in Indiana had been raised in rural Florida and advised that most of the agricultural work in Florida was now South of Orlando and that Lake Okeechoobee would be a good place to look for seasonal work (picking fruit and such). So, on my way down to Boca Raton I drove around the lake and was distinctly unimpressed with the lake. It mostly was just a raised bern as far as I could tell. However, at the southern tip of Lake Okeechobee there was an interesting flood gate that I investigated. | |
| From the top the bern (added for flood control I presume), you really can see a lake. | |
| As I proceeded North on US Rt 441, there was a park which went over the bern. Here the lake really looks quite large. As I proceeded North around the East side of Lake Okeechobee, I saw only sugar cane fields and pastures (with cattle). Neither is particularly seasonal. | |
| At the North end of Lake Okeechobee I stopped to use a pay phone in the town of Okeechobee. I was caught on hold and gave up when a woman was waiting to use the phone. I asked where she would go to find seasonal work and she suggested One Stop, the Florida employment office, amongst many other things (apparently). Here is the pay phone I was using. | |
| I got there just in time at 4:45PM while they closed at 5PM. However, there was time for her to give me referrals. Here is the One Stop Office I stopped at. | |
| She gave me two referrals. One for "Fruit Harvester" and one for a citrus processing plant. She wanted to give one working on repairing irrigation systems instead of picking fruit, but I was not to be dissuaded. Here is the front entrance to 'Circle H' the company who runs the crews. I got their early (I had gotten the referral just before 5PM on the 22nd and so went in first thing on the 23rd). I was referred to Jan, the guy who runs the crews. | |
| He was really surprised that I wanted to pick fruit and strongly suggested other jobs, but I was persistent and he went ahead and assigned me to a crew that was taking on about 8 new people. They all filled out new employment forms with me in the Crew Registration trailer. Everyone but me is Hispanic on my crew which is led by Louis. | |
This page was last updated on August 14, 2004.