Tasty Week

Here are a few of the food highlights of the week......

A group of Jamaicans has climbed the mango tree in our neighbor's front yard several times now, picking large bags of mangos.

We decided that if we didn't take some quick action, there would be no fruit left.




So, Vince fashioned his mango-grabber by taping (using good ole' duct tape) a coffee can to a long stick. He cut a notch in the can to help release the mango from its stem. And, it worked!

We were able to obtain a nice little pile of mangos, and there are still some left in the tree if the Jamaicans come back.

Darren is one of our next door neighbors -- he is a nice guy who is very inventive in ways to use local resources. Shortly after he first moved in, he told me he wanted to catch land crabs (which only appear at night) and keep them in his back yard shed under a fluorescent light to try to encourage them to procreate. That didn't seem to work out, so he then started thinking about catching some of the roosters and chickens that stroll around in our neighborhood in order that he could gather some fresh eggs. So far, we have just noticed him shooting pebbles at a chicken with a slingshot. However, Darren's most fruitful hobby (so far) is using his spear gun to fish while scuba diving. (You can also see all of the queen conch shells on the work table that he has harvested during the last few months.)


Today, I was able to try a taste of one of his speargun catches - a lobster! I had no idea lobsters could be found here, but apparently some huge ones (three feet long) that can be caught even while snorkeling. I don't think I'll be trying that myself any time in the near future -- especially after I heard him describe his friend clutching a huge lobster to his chest until he could come to the surface -- ugh! That doesn't sound like fun. I'll just hope that Darren will share lobster with us again sometime soon.


Darren also used his machete to slash open a green coconut and let both Vince and me try some coconut water (not to be confused with coconut milk, which is made with the actual coconut meat). The liquid is cool and very refreshing. Darren told us that he watched some Jamaicans climb up a coconut palm tree in a couple of seconds flat -- they probably have been doing it all of their lives.