The new year has brought us to mid-central Florida where four major industries flourish: citrus growers, cattle ranches, tourism and senior citizenship.
To travel along the rural byways is an interesting perspective; urban-sprawl
next to a 45-acre fenced grazing area for the black-faced, bulky Brangus.
During January, with our home-base in Avon Park, we channeled roads
less traveled by snowbirds. A few places driven through appeared ghost -townish, most often settled early 1900-1906, when rural Florida was most especially rural. One such wide-place-in-the-road is Picnic, where on Sunday afternoons in the early 1900s this crossroad of two wooden bridges over the Hurrah Creek became a meeting spot after church meetings, where women would klatch, children would run and play, and men would share fish-tales.
 |
| ...waiting for a french fry... no ketsup, please |
Balm, whose town was originated in 1902, began as a very small farming area of three families and included a train station and post office where the mail would be hung on a peg and a trainman would grab it while going through town.
Wimauma … sounds like the refrain of a Beach Boys song, was named for the three daughters of the founder’s using the first two letters of their names. A very remote deserted town we found is Fort Lonesome…visualize a John Wayne movie with a ghost-like silhouette sauntering along the side of the road with a slow gait and cigarette smoke swirling around his shadow.
We found towns and hamlets where people were seen, as well. A non-ghost
town is Fort Meade that dates back to 1849 and was an old military road during
the Indian Wars and was the victim of four devastating fires by 1890. There is
a golf resort named Streamsong nearby. This sprawling resort is a reclaimed
mining area covering about 16,000 acres. If we build it…they will come…and they
better bring their American Express. This resort is for those who don’t ask how
much the caddie charges; nor expect a bowl of peanuts during happy hour. But
will expect the bath towels to be warm and the thread count an Egyptian 4000! 
Central Florida is a land of citrus groves, lakes and citrus groves…and
more citrus groves. Right now we are in what is considered mid-season for
harvesting. Since oranges ripen only when on trees a grove manager will test
oranges from a block, or about 40-acres, to determine the sugar and acid ratio
of the fruit.
The experienced pickers will harvest a block of orchard at a time using wooden ladders and canvas sacks. The fruit is then dumped into plastic tubs equaling about 900 lbs, which in turn are unloaded into an open tractor-trailer. The fruit is trucked from the grove to the packinghouse, where it's sanitized with a vinegar solution, inspected, washed, scrubbed, rinsed, polished with plastic and horsehair bristles, dried in two heaters and waxed. Oranges deemed too small or large, blemished or otherwise imperfect are whisked by conveyor belt to a truck bound for a juice plant. Anything not good enough for juice becomes cattle feed. And magically, a glass of chilled pulp or-no-pulp juice is sitting on your table waiting for your nodding of the head as it refreshes your taste buds and fills your bones with sunshiny calcium, and you sigh….ahhhhhh.
The experienced pickers will harvest a block of orchard at a time using wooden ladders and canvas sacks. The fruit is then dumped into plastic tubs equaling about 900 lbs, which in turn are unloaded into an open tractor-trailer. The fruit is trucked from the grove to the packinghouse, where it's sanitized with a vinegar solution, inspected, washed, scrubbed, rinsed, polished with plastic and horsehair bristles, dried in two heaters and waxed. Oranges deemed too small or large, blemished or otherwise imperfect are whisked by conveyor belt to a truck bound for a juice plant. Anything not good enough for juice becomes cattle feed. And magically, a glass of chilled pulp or-no-pulp juice is sitting on your table waiting for your nodding of the head as it refreshes your taste buds and fills your bones with sunshiny calcium, and you sigh….ahhhhhh.
Winding over hills and through the vales, (note: not really hills, not
really vales; more like turtle bumps) of thousands and thousands of acres of
citrus groves we find places such as Babson Park, a small village tucked
between Crooked Lake and surrounding orange groves. And nearby is Doctor
Phillips, Florida. The only notable for this lonely outpost is that an old
citrus packing plant was used to create the Swiss Family Robinson Tree at
Disney, some fifty years ago. Just down the road and around a few curves is
Highland Park; there aren’t too many people living here now. It began as a
Quaker community and its original dormitory, built in the late 1920s, is now
part of the Lekarica Country Club Resort, having survived a hurricane of a
decade ago.
Granted, this area of Florida is not for those wanting to step out their door and into an amusement park or stroll on a sandy, white beach. A sense of pastoral, bucolic, backcountry living surrounds the towns, villages and hamlets, as it probably seemed 120 years ago. And what is ever-present is the tender white fragrance of the orange blossom. These waxy clusters of petals are used in perfumes, cuisines, bridal bouquets and delicious honey. Although the essence of the flowers are captured in oils, there is nothing like approaching a blossomed orange tree and sticking your nose up to a laden branch of blossoms and inhaling the bittersweet delicate scent and hoping you will remember it forever.
 |
| Robbie, the feral boar |
 |
| Butter...the Burmese python |
 |
| Bradenton Beach |
We have begun our barrier island quest beginning with Anna Maria and
getting, so far, as south as Bradenton Beach.
There’s a lot to see and do and we will pace ourselves over the next
twenty days.In the meantime, Happy Valentine’s Day and stay tuned….
 |
| LIFE IS SHORT.....ENJOY THE RIDE |
