Hazy Day

It is very hazy here today, as the photo shows. It has been really humid and still… also smells a bit like smoke. I’m not sure if the smoke smell is because the haze is from Montserrat or if it is just because someone is burning trash.

I ordered some plant seeds, including Strawberry Guava, Mysore Raspberry (tropical raspberry), Acerola (a.k.a. Barbados Cherry), Kiwi, Horned melon, Ground Cherry (kinda like a cherry tomato) and Sunrise Papaya. With the exception of the raspberry, I am going to try to grow all of the above in containers on our patio. The raspberry, I’m going to grow out back, assuming Devon/Maureen don’t mind. A picture of the Horned melon is below.



I trimmed back the yard a bit with my brand new machete. I managed not to lose any parts (or shed any blood) as I cleared back the bushes a bit from where we park. Was good fun, hacking at the jungle out in the sun with a freshly sharpened machete (I can imagine mom shuddering at that).

I talked with Devon a bit about the yard. The banana trees (herbs) in front are Fig Bananas, which Devon says are a bit smaller and sweeter than regular bananas. He promised to share them with us when they are ripe. Also, he told me the coconuts are "ready" when they are full size (and green). For those of you who don't know, coconuts have a large husk on them which must be hacked off (with a machete of course). The brown, round coconut you buy in supermarkets already has had this layer removed (random tidbit from watching ogles of nature shows as a kid… the outer husk protects the inner fruit from damage, but also serves as a float, so the coconut can float from island to island). Anyway, I’ll have to try one out one of these days.

I almost had a low speed frontal collision while I was turning onto our street today. From the “main” road, our street is a very steep descent, which makes it hard to see if anyone is coming up our road. Anyway, both of us stopped in time, so no harm done. That is the 3rd time in 5 or 6 weeks that I’ve met a car coming from the opposite direction at the head of our street, so it doesn’t happen too often, but it keeps me on my toes. To complicate matters, our street is only one lane, meaning that if someone is coming the other way, one of the cars needs to pull into a driveway to let the other pass. The road services about 10 houses or so, and I meet a car on it about 1 out of 5 times. It is an interesting drive from the airport… it starts out with a 4 lane divided road, then goes to 2 lanes with clearly marked lines, then 2 lanes (more like 1.8 lanes) with no lines, then our one lane street. Good fun.

I don’t remember if Kendra has posted this already, but there is no open container (alcohol) law on the island. So as far as I have discerned, it is okay to:
1) Drink and drive (and yes parents, we know this is stupid, and we will NOT drink and drive).
2) Stop randomly for as long as you want wherever you want to chat with other drivers or pedestrians, or just because you want to.
3) Park and leave your car, as long as 2 of your tires are off the road.
4) Use any part of the road you want.
5) Drive as fast or as slow as you want.

Only two things you are not allowed to do:
1) Have too much tinting on your windows (they just passed a law stating the max tint required 70% light to pass through, yesterday they changed it to 40% light passing through because they realized 70% was pretty extreme. The police were pulling people over, and then giving the driver a choice to either use a razor to scrap off the tint or take a traffic ticket.)
2) Drive without a seat belt on.

I find it highly ironic that you can drink and drive, but if your windows are too dark you get busted. Go figure.

Perhaps it is bad taste to put a drink recipe here, but here’s another Nielsam Original regardless:
Iguana Sunset (careful, it is a fairly strong drink)
Makes ~16 oz
Put ½ to 1 cup of ice in 12-15oz glass.
Add:
3 oz Pineapple Rum
3 oz Coconut Rum
1.5 oz Light Rum
9 oz Grapefruit Juice
Stir and serve.