Recently, the car, my wife and I spent two weeks of quality time together. Our primary destination was some farm fields just west of the Mississippi River in southwestern Louisiana.
Louisiana is among the nation’s leading producer of sugar cane and rice, two crops about which I knew very little.
Sugar cane was being harvested. The fields are first burned to remove the leaves. We saw some quite lively field fires. The cane is pressed and then heated to separate the sugar from the syrup (molasses). The end product is the white sugar we are familiar with. To get brown sugar, they just return some molasses.
New crops of sugar cane are started from cutting up existing stalks and planting. Think potatoes. We saw cane fields in all stages of production from planting to harvest.
Rice, as we all know, is grown in flooded fields. The flooding provides weed and insect control as well as providing moisture to the plant. The rice is planted in the early spring, harvested in the summer and then re-grows to produce a second crop being harvested beginning in late October and running almost to Christmas.
The milling process for rice starts by removing the outer hulls, producing brown rice. Further hull removal produces white rice.
Of course there was a bird involved. It was a yellow rail, (think thin as a rail) being rather small and quite elusive. It is nearly impossible to see under normal conditions, but is high on the ‘want to see’ list of most birdwatchers.
It breeds in the northern tier of states, mainly Minnesota. Many overwinter in the rice fields of Louisiana . You guessed it. We spent several days in the rice fields with great success. We either watched the front of the combine from the field edge or rode on the combine. It was fun, and we saw the bird at least ten times.
Interestingly, the farmers, the conservation groups and the business community have teamed together to create a win win situation. After harvest, many fields are now re-flooded, providing additional excellent habitat for overwintering ducks and wading birds. People come to see the birds. People spend money in the community. Everybody wins.
