Early morning harvest in foggy field
Well, the sugarcane saga continues. I kind of left you at the cliff-hanger with my last blog, and I must now give you the “rest of the story”.
The last entry ended on Sunday with mud up to our eyeballs and one more day to get the cane off of the field. Monday arrived with sunshine and hope. We did need to hire a tractor to pull each loaded truck off of the field, but the complete burned portion was removed with a harvest that surpassed the estimated amount.
The harvested portion of the field was a terrible mess from the heavily loaded trucks and the tractor having gouged great furrows through the rows of cane roots. To make matters even more difficult, since the green tops of the cane do not burn when the field is burned for harvesting, when the harvesters cut off the cane tops they are piled into windrows. In a dry field the trucks can drive over them without incident, and they can all be gathered later and are usually burned. Since our field was absolute muck when the trucks were driving around on it, our tips were ground into several inches of clay gumbo and will all have to be pulled out of the heavy mess and stacked for burning.
I had hoped to see if we could use the cane tops for silage. However, since we have nothing prepared for this at this
Lighting cane fire in field
point we decided to see if we could simply chip it back into the field as a green manure mulch. The fact that they were ground into the mud made this plan seem farfetched for this particular harvest, but we thought that we would give it a whirl anyway to see if it might be possible for future harvests.
On Tuesday I began to collect the tips into piles. On Wednesday we got the wood chipper out and gave it a whirl. We found out that although the chipper was not designed for this purpose, it was possible to chip the sugarcane tips – but with a lot of work and time. We did several rows and were getting ready to put the equipment away and go home for the night when a young man stopped by the field and told us that the engineer had ordered the last portion of the field burned.
It had been dry since Monday and things were beginning to dry out and look hopeful for the remaining part of the harvest. I had been hoping that the engineer would wait for a couple more days before ordering the last burn to give it even more time, but still, things should go okay with the current conditions.
Field ablaze
The field was torched, and an impressive conflagration it was indeed. This was the first time that I had seen an actual burn up-close-and-personal, and it is an awe-inspiring sight to be working beside it as it goes along the field.
We returned home on Wednesday night tired, very dirty, and hopeful that there would be an easy harvest on the following day.
At 1:00 o’clock in the morning I woke up to the sound of a steady downpour. I tossed and turned until the alarm clock went off at 6:00 o’clock, always with one ear on the unceasing rain which had lasted throughout the whole night.
When Javier arrived we resignedly loaded the van and headed out to the field to see what the damages were. Once again, we could barely slip our way to the farm – the main roadway was almost impassable – worse, if that is possible, than last week.
But the cane cutters were in the field – actually two crews – and the cutting had begun. With the very wet field we did not expect that any trucks would be moving. However, sometime midmorning we were told that we needed to get a tractor immediately because the trucks were going to begin arriving in order to remove what had been cut. More rain was expected, and the field would only get wetter than it was now if this were to happen.
Javier and I scrambled to find a tractor capable of the job ahead, and it arrived at the field just behind the first of the
The conditions were not great
trucks. The job of cane removal began.
Trucks continued to load all day – each one being dragged with spinning wheels and flying mud to the edge of the muck-filled field, and onto the sloppy roadway. From there they ground their way towards Cd. Valles, and the sugarcane processing plant.
Friday morning arrived without the expected rain overnight, but with a pea soup fog. Miraculously we did not receive rain all day and the last of the cutting was accomplished, and the very last of the trucks were hauled out of the field in the late afternoon.
The “Oh you of little faith” part is in reference to a fully-completed and very successful harvest despite some big setbacks. We did indeed need to hire a tractor for the three days of actual hauling. This is money that will have to come out of the profits for this year’s production. However, our tonnage exceeded the estimate by about 115 tons. It was estimated that we would take out about 306 tons. In actuality we removed approximately 420 tons of sugarcane – 26 loaded trucks.
Praise the Lord. This is the culmination of almost a year and a half of an incredible amount of work.
Loaded truck being pulled from field with tractor
So, that is the saga of the sugarcane harvest, 2012. If you go to the top of the blog page you will see a very large red button with the words “New Photos Section”. There you will find some cool harvest shots under the heading “Harvest 2012”.
But life here is not only sugarcane and harvest (although that is what has absorbed much of my time of late). Theresa is one going concern with her sewing classes. She seems to be acquiring more and more students almost daily. Our house is filled with buzzing sewing machines and chattering women from shortly after I leave for the field in the morning to long after I return at night (thank God for an “office” that I can sequester myself into until all of the female chatter ends in the evening).
Theresa is working on an idea with Cristina, Javier’s wife, where they will use the sewing machines in order to begin a little cottage industry in one of the very poor colonias where Javier and Cristina are pastoring a little village church. Right now it seems as if the idea might be to teach some of the local women how to make little animal-shaped purses and bags. These could then be sold, and the women would begin to have an income from something other than extremely back-breaking manual labour. I will try to keep you posted as this dream moves from vision to reality. It looks like the projected start-date is in the new year.
At the risk of making this blog entry too long, I also want to speak again about the vision for the Training Center on the
The very last load from the harvest, 2012
property. Our goal and purpose is not simply to grow sugarcane or have a self-financing farm. That is a very short-sighted goal. Rather, our dream is to create a place where men and women can live and work, study God’s Word, and learn to walk out in a practical way the Kingdom of God.
There is a lot of bad religious teaching floating around Mexico – stinking thinking – which teaches that truly godly people, a person who really trusts and loves God will not work at a “secular” job, but rather will “live by faith”. I have never figured out how the very ones who are the biggest proponents of this bad doctrine are also the ones most happy to mooch off of the very ones who hold the “secular” jobs. Still, the logic seems to follow the line of a conversation that I was told about yesterday. One of the brothers was asked to come aboard a certain church organization into leadership, and in so doing to give up his “secular” work and to “live by faith”. When he explained that he was currently running a music school which was his bread and butter, but the purpose of which was also to raise up men and women who could be worshipers, he was confronted by “Oh no brother, you cannot try to help God, you simply need to learn to live by faith”. To earn a living by holding a job was considered to be a sign of lack of faith in God’s provision.
If we can do nothing else at the Training Center, then I think that we have made great leaps forward if we can simply begin to break the hold that this false teaching has. If men and women can learn that God is as honoured, and that the Kingdom of God is as real, and that every action is as sacred whether one is preaching, teaching, weeding sugarcane, or slopping the hogs, then we have made great leaps forward.
Clearing cane tops into burning piles
We have also had some potentially wonderful news in our search for some way to begin with the much-needed housing on the land for the Training Center. I hesitate to say too much at this point because I still have not seen the final numbers on any of the ideas that I will put forward here. But, about a week ago a Christian brother and local businessman expressed his desire to help us at the Center with providing housing at his cost. One of the businesses that he has is constructing schools and houses for the government in the mountainous area to the south and west of us. The designs that they use are very simplified and basic, and the construction costs reflect this. There are some drawbacks to the construction since they can never have a second story added because the foundation and walls are only designed for a light load. However, any disadvantages are far outweighed by the much-reduced cost of the finished product. If the prices that I understood are correct, then perhaps God has opened up a way where individual churches can take on the cost of a building for the Training Center. I will also write more about this later when I can do so knowledgably, and not chattering on with only half-information.
I feel that we are at the threshold of moving forward with the Training School. New things are in the wind. I believe that
Theresa with newest sewing class student
we will soon have students living, working, and training on the farm. God will soon bring into reality the vision and dream. But we must think big and not give up or loose faith.
We need your continued love, prayers, and support.
Be blessed in God’s goodness.
With our love,
Steven and Theresa
