Darn cold here in Florida this morning. Somewhere in the high 20's, much to cold for me anymore. Not with out a few extra blankets or some long underwear anyway. It warmed up a bit this afternoon and at least the sun was shining. Still, it only got up into the high 50's for the afternoon.

   That was warm enough to be out and about anyway, even if I did still have on shorts and a t-shirt. Had to go into town and watch the new 'Die Hard' movie this afternoon. Pretty much the perfect 'guys night out' movie. It had tons of gratuitous violence and somewhat of a plot. Lot's of explosions and car chases and helicopters blowing up. Great fun over all, but not likely to be remembered much by the end of next week.

    Had to go do some grocery shopping also, as I was out of peanut butter again. Not sure how many jars of the stuff I've eaten in the past 4 years, but it has been a lot. Also picked up some more kool-ade and english muffins. While going down the frozen food aisle for some more blueberries I happened to look over and see that they still make and sell those cheap old 'pot pies' I use to buy way back when I was in the Coast Guard. They are now up to 88 cents apiece, instead of two for a buck, so I said what the heck. Picked up 6 of them and brought them home for dinner tonight. (two of them) Still pretty much how I remember them. Lot's of pastry, some mushy veggies and a few pieces of what I'm pretty sure was chicken..... and I still love them. Will have to keep them as a once in a great while kind of thing, but it's nice to find something from your younger life that hasn't changed much.

    So more photo's from St Croix tonight. This batch are from a hike a couple of us took over to an old sugar plantation near the condo's called Little Princess Plantation. Originally owned by Dutch settlers it grew sugar cane and produced raw sugar, molasses and rum with the help of slave labor from mostly Africa. It is now owned by the Nature Conservatory which bought it some 15-20 years ago with the idea of fixing it up like it once was. They dumped a bit of money into to start but after Hurricane Hugo hit and pretty much wiped everything out they haven't done a whole lot to it. Certainly not much since I've been visiting. So enjoy the photo's.

    I'll be going over to visit my sister and her husband tomorrow and Tuesday, so probably no pictures for a day or two. Bit I'll take the computer along just in case.

Little Princess Sugar Plantation on St Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands - Feb 10, 2013

Positioned on top of the hill to take advantage of the sea breezes and the view, this was the owners main home. Built to be comfortable in this climate, it had large porches and lots of windows and doors for ventilation.

Next door to the main house was this structure that was once a hospital.  A rather large structure it seems logical that it was built to take care of injuries to slaves from many of the local plantations rather than just this one.

A view of the side of the hospital. The building is now being used as the office and workshop of the Nature Conservancy.

A non native 'anole'. These little lizards have become so prolific that it is doubtful there will ever be a way to get rid of them again. They have taken over from the native chameleons and other small lizards that called this island home. This one has managed to keep all of it's tale. Most of them lose a part of it at some point in their life while escaping from predators. No worries though, it will grow back again given enough time.

You will see these structures sticking up all over the island. Once the bottom support structure for Dutch style windmills, the locals used them to turn the rollers that would crush the sugar cane and remove the syrup. I really wish they would put at least one of them back together again so I could see how it all worked.

Eventually there was enough cane planted and harvested that they had to have a separate 'factory' to do it all in. This one most likely started out small using just human, animal or wind power to do all the various jobs that turning raw sugar cane into sugar required. Eventually they even installed steam power to do all those chores that humans use to be in charge of.

What is left of the factory smoke stack. Like most cane operations they would of used the crushed and dried cane stalks as fuel to heat the water to make steam.

One wall that is still mostly standing.

A piece of the machinery left behind in the sugar factory. If I had to guess I would think this piece probably had something to do with turning the rollers that crushed the sugar cane stalks.

Noticed this wild bee hive in the rotted end of an old window lintel a couple of years ago. It's nice to see that they are still around doing what they do best.

These are some kind of wild fig trees. They start out by using other plants and trees to climb on and then send out these aerial roots to anchor themselves and increase their size. Eventually they will likely kill their original hoist tree and you'll be left with this maze of tree trunks that have grown from the roots.

This plantation had a small well down near the sugar factory. Handy for gathering water for the steam engine later on. The well only looked a foot or two deep but they had built this huge tower over the top of it. Not really sure about it, but I think they may of had a small windmill on top of it that ran some kind of 'pump' to take the water from here over to the factory.

Looking up the inside of the tower with some of the wooden support platform timbers still in place.

This was once the slave overseer's home. The slaves made do with wattle and daub, (stick and mud), homes when they first arrived. Later on they constructed stronger and more permanent stone and brick structures.

A portion of the exterior wall on the overseer's home. Notice the coral lines in most of the native stone.