A below freezing Good Morning, Hikers!

I apologize not being in touch sooner.  It’s been a week of incredible experiences, the telling of which was hobbled by an unforeseen and totally unknown technical issue.  But hey, water under the bridge now.  We’re back on line and I have some cool things to share with you.

I’ve spent this week as a guest of the Panhandle Pioneer Settlement.  Ok, ok, (I can hear you now, “Hey there, Mr. Trail Hiker, aren’t you supposed to be hiking the trail??”

Well guess what?  The trail passes right through this enchanting step back in time and anyone who walks by this place without unlacing their boots and taking a day or two to experience it is missing one of the true gems of the Florida Trail.

Imagine a place where you can experience the life of an early settler in the untamed lands of Florida BEFORE it was a state.  Live in an authentic cabin, furnished with furniture and bedding and a wood burning stove, the very some ones these early settlers used. 

Ordinarily, a visitor to this charming settlement tours the cabins and is provided a glimpse into the pioneer lifestyle.  I was invited to stay in one, as you already know.  Hikers, I lived it as authentically as possible, and hikers, I loved it.

I had the experience of crafting three batches of sugar cane syrup, a laborious process that takes a full day’s work to accomplish.  One ton of can produces just 13 gallons of syrup, and this ton of cane is ground up one stalk at a time.

Actually it’s more of a squeeze than a grind.  The cane is pushed between two tightly- positioned rollers and crushed as flat as a sheet of paper.  Not a place you want to accidentally put your hand.  And yes, that’s happened before.  When I asked my hosts about it I received a sober, wincing nod in reply. They then added that it is impossible to extract yourself until someone turns off the grinder. There was nothing more to say except –be very, very careful.  I was.

The juice squeezed from the sugar cane is filtered through a burlap screen and collected in a tank.  It’s a water-like pale green liquid and its taste is sweeter than the sweetest tea you ever sipped.  Part of the process is to taste a sample of the juice, because each batch of sugar cane has a slightly different taste.  Some people use the juice to sweeten their drinks and to make homemade sugar cane wine. 

The juice is pumped into a huge cast iron cauldron where it is slowly brought to boil. The boiling process takes about three hours.  This removes most the water, reducing the liquid to syrup.  It’s a fascinating and beautiful process.  It fills the rustic cypress sugar house with an aroma that carries a faint hint of caramel.  It bubbles golden and hot, mesmerizing all who tend to it. 

Once it becomes syrup, it is scooped out with buckets on long, wooden handles.  It is poured through a burlap filter and in to a tank to cool.  The lime green juice has been transformed to deep amber liquid, steaming and sweet.

The bottles are filled from a small spigot by hand while the syrup is hot.  As the level of syrup in the tank is lowered, it leaves behind a gooey, nougat-like substance called “polecat”.  It is pale yellow, very sticky and difficult to scrape from the sides of the tank.  But the effort is worthwhile.  Imagine taffy that tastes like the inside of a Milky Way bar.  Well hikers, it’s much sweeter, stickier and tastier than that and believe me, kids of all ages – even say…48, go nuts for the stuff.

The cauldron used in the syrup making process here is over 150 years old, and once served to boil salt form seawater.  Salt was a valuable commodity that was made just down the Apalachicola River from here in the port town of Apalachicola.  Salt was used to cure and preserve food – remember, there wasn’t ice in the south back then.  So vital was salt to survival that during the War Between the States that the Union army launched attacks against salt works in towns along the Gulf of Mexico – including Tampa – to starve the Confederate Army into submission.

As much as the syrup-making process is a rewarding one to those who do it, it is also a social event.  Many people here in Calhoun County grow small plots of cane just so they can participate in the fun and social interaction that accompanies the work.  Stories are retold, and this anecdotal oral history is woven into the fabric of the next generation.  It isn’t unusual to meet three –or more – generations at an old-fashioned syrup making event.

And that’s what it is, an event.  And we were invited to be a part of it.  Lucky dogs, we are, no?

Polecat-sweet Cheers! from the Florida Trail, Mike