Really nice day today. Spent some time doing odd jobs around the trailer, (Jessica), for a couple of hours. Today's list included installing some new bubble levels on various points around the outside of the trailer. I use them for leveling up the trailer when I am setting it up after moving. I had 4 new ones to install so I put one on each side, with the ones on either side being at opposite ends of the trailer. They all come with their own self stick adhesive, but that stuff doesn't work very well on the material that the trailer is made out of, and especially at 70 mph going down the highway.
   My other odd job was to fix the fuel door on my truck so that it would stay closed. About a year ago a piece of the door assembly evidently fell off and the door stopped staying closed. Instead the plastic leash that holds the gas cap on kept holding the door open and away from the side of the truck no matter what I did. Of course buying a new mechanism would be the ideal, but they only sell the gas cap housing as one complete unit and that at a price of nearly $200 without tax and before painting to match the rest of the vehicle and before installation. My brother-in-law came up with a good idea several months ago in that we cut off some small slivers of Velcro and stuck the appropriate pieces on each side of the door. It worked for a little while, but the width of the pieces didn't have enough sticky stuff on them for it to hold up for any length of time. So this morning I pulled off the old pieces and cut some new wider pieces and stuck them on to the inside and outside edges of the gas filler door. So far it seems to be working okay. But of course only time and use will tell if it will hold up. I guess if it doesn't work I can always resort to using some type of glue or caulking to hold the Velcro pieces in place.
   Took off around 3:00 to run into town for some late lunch. I was craving another burrito from La Tienda Latina and ran in  to eat. I ordered the Chivo burrito this time, also known as pulled goat. Like all of them it was super delicious. I had planned to go over to Paines Prairie State Park afterwards for a nice walk and a look at the gators, but somehow my order got lost and they didn't bring my meal out for more than an hour. So you might be wondering why I sat around and waited that long for my meal, but I just figured that they might actually need to gather up some of the ingredients since goat isn't likely to be one of their more popular meals. Plus I had my book and a glass of ice tea so I wasn't in any real hurry. But hunger did finally win out and I went up to check on it.... turns out my order just got lost in the shuffle some how. Once I mentioned it they only took a couple minutes to get it out to me. But by that time I got done it was nearly closing time at the park so I just came back to the trailer and took a quick walk around town.
    Tonight I spent some time catching up on some PBS shows I had missed while in the Caribbean. In particular I watched episodes of This Old House, Ask This Old House and a Nature show about moose. Now it's time to work on a few more pictures so I'll leave you with some additions to the post last night.
    These are taken in St Croix two weeks ago when I was down there for a contra dance week. These are of a Nature Conservative Site known as Little Princess, one of the original sugar plantations on the island. Check out last nights post for Part I.

St. Croix's Little Princess Sugar Plantation - February 8, 2016
Part II

 

This second part showcases some of the remains of other buildings at the Little Princess site. Located down hill from the Big House and windmill was the main sugar factory, as well as the houses for all of the slaves who worked on the plantation. In the case of the mill, being down hill was necessary because the cane juice that was extracted at the windmill grinders could flow down to the mill with the help of gravity. The slave quarters were there because it was convenient to the mill where they worked, but mostly it was because it was land that was to poor or swampy to plant sugar cane on. This photo shows the corner of what was most likely one of the slave houses.

These trees, some type of fig it says, use aerial roots to expand and stabilize its main trunk. Wherever one of the roots would touch down a new tree trunk would start to grow.

One of the walls of the mill building.

More of the mill building walls.

 The openings in this wall, on the downhill side of the mill, would of been where hogsheads of sugar, (barrels), would be loaded onto farm wagons to take them into town to be loaded on ships for export. It was usual for the design of a mill to make use of gravity in all of its various functions to make it easier.

The uphill side of the mill building. Raw cane juice would flow down a wooden sluice into an opening along this wall and into large iron bowls or kettles. Fires would be lit under these bowls in order to evaporate the water out of the mixture and concentrate the sugar. As more and more water was removed the sugar concentrate moved down a line until it reached a point where it could be loaded into wooden hogsheads, where they would continue draining liquid out holes in the bottom for several more weeks.

It wouldn't be St Croix without at least one picture of anoles.

A piece of mill machinery left over from an earlier time.

This building is all that is left of the 'overseer' house. The overseer was the person responsible for the work of the slaves on the plantation.

One of the things that happened over the past year is that they cleared all of the junk and fallen wall and roofing material out of this building.

A view of the interior of the overseer house. The mortar they used to bind the stones together for walls was an interesting mixture of sand, ground up and roasted clam shells, (similar to slaked lime in cement), and molasses. Hard to believe but some of the buildings built more than 150 years ago with this mixture are still standing.  

Some flowers blooming on the site.

Looking up hill toward the windmill from the sugar mill.

One final picture showing the base of the windmill and the overseer house.