Stay in Florida

Stay in Florida

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Here is the entrance to the Williamson Grove/Ranch we went to on October 30, 2001. It is about 5 miles north of Okeechobee off US 441. It was about half an hour drive there. I got two bins of grapefruit there in about three hours (much better, but still way slower than the rest). We get paid weekly and the checks are delayed a week (I got paid for October 24 on October 31). Louis was quite generous and creditted me with 2.2 boxes (I really only did 1.5 before the other guys helped so we could all leave when the second box was done) and a little conservative on the hours (2.5, it seemed like more), but that is good as it put me well over minimum wage. I got $14.30 before taxes and $13.28 after.
Here are the sprayers for all vehicles entering their grove. I had no protection in the loader, so closed my eyes and held my breath as the loader got sprayed. I have heard that it is carbolic acid for citrus canker and, hopefully, not very harmful to humans.
Here is my crew leader, Louis, with my friend Anno standing at the rear end of the loader. As most everyone I hang out with speaks Spanish, I have started thinking in Spanish. More precisely, I have always guessed that I don't really think in English as I have many ideas that simply won't translate easily into English (and when I have to express those ideas it can take paragraphs to express a single concept). So now, I am translating my thoughts into Spanish instead of English and, of course, a lot more of my thoughts go untranslated as I don't really know very much Spanish.... Before picking, they put little slips of paper number 1 to whatever and all crumpled up into a hat and we then draw to find out our starting location.
On October 31 (our first day there), I had gotten the number one, so I started with the first tree in the grove and on down in the picture of the grove below. I filled the two bins you can see. On the right side of the picture is a 'canal' or drainage ditch full of water (not really visible) with a mixture of non fruit trees over it. The grapefruit trees are about twelve feet tall and we use aluminum ladders (shown in the next row). We were picking 'packing' grapefruit (for boxing and shipment to super markets and so on) and so only picked the larger fruits. There weren't many large fruits on these trees and so we were told to not bother with the ladders (which are often used only a little in any case for 'spot' picking where you only get the large fruit).
I have gotten to the point that I can get a good idea of the size of a fruit even when I only see a little of it (through the leaves) and get a very good idea of the size when I grab it by how far my finger wrap around it and how heavy it is. Here is a nice picture of the loader Luis uses when dropping off the empty bins and picking up the full bins. I routinely drive the loader between groves as I am the only member of our crew with a driver's license.). Notice there is no windshield. At 60 MPH the wind really blows and things like bugs and rain (not experienced yet by me) can really sting.
Here is a little movie of Louis picking up a bin of fruit (15 secs, 320K, it will probably take a little over a minute to download). There a five levers to his right that he can push up or down to expand or contract the five sets of hydraulic cylinders. He has gotten the use of that loading arm down to a fine art (and is very quick at it). I had hoped to replace this movie with one from the loading side, but then we switched to juice oraanges which has a different kind of loader. My camera really does better with the sun behind me which is why this movie is from the non-loading side. In two pages there is a movie from the loading side with the juice oranges tubs and loader.	If your browser is not set up to show movies you will get a dialog box instead of a player and can just press cancel. If you press the pause button (left bottom) before the movie finishes you can watch the movie again without downloading it again.