Snakes!!

This has been an exciting week for discoveries on our hillside - more so for our gardener, Enrique. Yesterday, while cleaning our front flowerbed, he found this boa constrictor curled up and sleeping.

He said the snake would sleep during the day, awaken around sunset and be active at night. I had a better view of the snake from Don's office window. Sure enough, during sunset, the boa began to stretch and move around.

That's when I realized that he was shedding his old skin. See the difference from his head compared to the darker skin of his lower body?

He seemed to be fairly big. I kept waiting for him to stretch out fully and come out from under the plants, but the light was fading, and I was not able to see him in his full glory.

Merlin came by and was horrified, wanting to know why we didn't have Enrique kill Mr. Boa. We rather like him - as long as he stays outside!

The day before, as Enrique was trimming and cleaning around the ficus trees up our hill, he had even more excitement when he encountered a coral snake - very poisonous. It's a wonder he didn't fall down the hill and slide into the ravine during that discovery; he was standing on a very steep section of the hill and was very startled. Now, he said it was a coral snake, and perhaps it was, but there is also a false coral snake with the same colorful stripes, only the pattern is slightly different. I'm sure he didn't pause to consider the pattern! Don and Lance also saw a coral, or false coral, snake one night while walking down the road on our hill after parking the car. We've also seen tarantulas on our road after dark. That's why we always carry a flashlight at night - never know what you might step on.

Early in the week, while Enrique was trimming the banana trees at the top of our hill along our property line, our neighbor's mom, who has Alzheimer's, wandered out through their gate and fell again. Enrique found her and ran to get help. Sadly, she may have broken her hip this time. It's a good thing that Enrique was there to assist her.

So Enrique has had quite enough excitement for one week. Now, if he can keep from getting blown off the hill today during our 40 mph gusts, he can have a day off for some much needed rest.

Poinsettias in the tropics

This is a poinsettia growing in our neighbors yard. It wasn't there last June when we left, but I noticed it right away when we returned in January. It is at least four feet tall, maybe more. I read in my tropical flower book that poinsettias can reach a height of 12 feet or more if not trimmed. This one hasn't been. They will bloom almost continuously when cut back once or twice a year.

I wonder how tall it will get. 

Spanish Lessons

We've been continuing our Spanish studies and have been meeting with our friend, Kristin, and pal, Olman for bilingual lessons. Olman is a young, Spanish-speaking security guard whom Kris befriended last year. He is as eager to learn English as we are Spanish....actually, he's much more enthusiastic. Look at that big smile! He gets so tickled when his pronunciation is correct; he has as much difficulty as we do with making certain sounds. He is also really excited when I am able to roll my r's.  Kris and Don have been taking turns preparing our lessons and we all learn together. Olman will quiz us, too. We have lots of fun. 

After our lesson, we gave Olman a ride back to West End. Kris needed a few things, so she came along. Don is sitting in the shade, waiting for her to finish her errands.

This is one of the vegetable vendor trucks. They pick up fresh produce from the mainland, brought over on the ferry, every Tuesday and Friday. There are always two or three of these trucks parked in West End. I like how he hangs his scale from a branch of the tree. 

Kris is buying some avocados. The island avocados aren't producing yet and neither are the mangos.  We like doing business with this man, but we'll often see who has the best looking produce. 

Our Spanish lessons come in handy here; most of these vendors speak Spanish.

Yardwork

An update on how the yardwork is progressing. Above is a "before" photo of the fallen Pride of Barbadoes shrub laying across several hibiscus bushes.

This is "after" the cleanup and trimming. Of course, the trimming always removes most of the flowers on the bushes, but they were pretty wild. New flowers should appear soon.

This is taken from our bedroom window, looking at the steep slope down the side of our house.

This is where Don is building the stairway down the slope. I'm not allowed to go down there right now - it's so easy to slip on the loose gravel and keep on sliding. 

He's got a pretty good start on the first section of stairs. I'll sure be glad when I can go down there and tend my garden myself. I want to put a compost bin down there, too; our soil needs a bit of enriching in order to grow some veggies. I had a little herb garden started behind Don, but it hasn't survived our long absences. Soon, I'll be able to start fresh!

2 great iPhotos

I've gotten a bit lazy about blogging. After a crazy busy week, we had a fairly quiet weekend. It was nice to have Bob and Debi back on the island and share a sunset, a taco pizza, and a game of cribbage.

Debi took this shot of us on the deck with the last glow of the sunset behind us. That's Bob's arm on the right. Obviously, I haven't yet learned how to use the new photoshop elements 8 software! 

A Very Full Day

Yesterday I took our friend, Kristin, in to Coxen Hole to shop. She still needed a number of things for her newly rented house, like pots and pans, trash cans, a hamper, miscellaneous kitchen items. We wandered up Market Street, looking in all the small shops along the way. It is amazing what they carry. Nearly every tiny shop carried some school supplies and children's school shoes (the children are required to wear uniforms and a certain type of black shoe, different for each school). Several of them also sold pedestal fans. We looked but didn't buy one. We walked up the block to Back Street and found the pots and pans store next to the Pepto Bismal pink building (hard to miss!). They had several sets of pans - two in stainless steel, although not the best quality, and one aluminum with a non-stick finish. We discovered that they also carry very large, restaurant-sized pots and lots of plastic items, like dish drainers and storage containers. Yup, she needed those, too. We stopped across the street at the office and school supply store to buy copy paper, then headed back to my car to unload.

This is another shop where Kris bought linens 

Next stop, the Flying Fisherman. Thursday is the day they pack boxes of fish for export and fill orders for local restaurants. We had to settle for frozen fillets unless we wanted to come back on Friday when they process the smaller fish suitable for our needs. We bought some of the squirrel snapper for about $4.00/lb., which the sales woman said was very, very good. On the way back to the car, Kris bought some large, fresh Honduran oranges for 1 lempira each (5.29 cents). She also got a huge papaya for about $2.00.

There was a cruise ship in port and lots of cruisers were out in the streets. It was getting hot, too, so we quickly finished our grocery shopping, first at Warren's and then up the hill at Plaza Mar, one of the more Americanized groceries. Kris was hoping to find stainless steel mixing bowls, but no luck.

This is Plaza Mar. The taxi drivers often bring cruisers up here because there is a nice view of the cruise ship dock. 

I took Kris home and we unloaded her groceries. Thankfully her security guard came up the steps just in time to help carry her purchases down the many steps to her house, cause I was ready to go home. I was so hot, my face was beet red, I was thirsty, and I was getting pretty hungry.

 After a quick lunch, I walked up the hill to visit my friend and neighbor, Tia (who is our pastor's wife). Her mother, who has rather advanced Alzheimer's, lives with Tia and it's getting pretty stressful. Pastor Chuck took her mom out for a long drive and a stop at the coffee shop so Tia and I could have a nice visit. 

But the day wasn't over yet! Dennis and Merlin picked us up at 6 p.m. to go to a benefit concert for Haiti being held at the new mall near French Harbor.  This was an outdoor concert, held by the fountains at the front of the mall from 5-10 p.m. We missed the first band and only heard part of the second band's performance. Paul, the fire dancer, also performed and puts on an incredible show. There were a total of 6 bands who performed for free.  During the concert, large 5 gallon water jugs were passed around to collect donations for Haiti. The money will go to an organization called Avaaz which is already in place in Haiti. 

It was a beautiful, clear night, with a great breeze which grew steadily stronger and cooler as the night wore on, but perfect for sitting outside. This mall has two American restaurants; Applebee's and Wendy's. Applebee's is near the fountains and has a large outdoor patio so many concert goers sat there and ate during the show, others wandered in and out. We ate at the smaller Big House Burgers (which also makes great Honduran "fast" food, all very good. This was also right next to the fountains, so we could still see and hear much of what went on.

When the last band finished, Merlin walked over to the new casino (the island's first casino - sad, but true...way too Americanized) and tried to round up her three friends who had also ridden with us. They were much more interested in playing the slot machines than in the concert, and were also reluctant to leave. Dennis finally had to go in and get them. 

It was a long, tiring, fun day. 

TheTaming of the Jungle

We finally have a gardener at work on our hillside, and so far, we are quite pleased with his work. We returned to the island after a six month absence to find everything very overgrown. Normally, we ask our friends, Dennis and Merlin, to hire a gardener to trim and clean up our property before our return. For some reason, that didn't happen this year. I think Don forgot to ask Dennis and, as we learned after our return, Dennis and Merlin gave all their workers the entire month of December off. 

This is the "before" view, looking over our deck down onto the hill below. What you are looking at is mostly our huge Pride of Barbados tree that fell over but continued to grow......sideways.....across the top of several hibiscus bushes. This tree is probably actually a shrub since it has multiple trunks. Two of the larger trunks fell over, two small ones grew up between the floorboards of our deck, and five more small trunks are growing up along side one of the support posts for our deck. These have now been thinned out.

Enrique and a friend of his chopped off the two fallen sections of the tree/shrub. They had quite a little struggle pulling those sections free; the tree/shrub must have been 15 feet tall and was enmeshed with vines and overgrown branches of hibiscus and bougainvilla plants. The "Pride" also has nasty thorns, so Enrique and his pal were happy that we provided nice thick work gloves for them.

I took a walk early in the morning before Enrique arrived. This is looking down the hill just below our property. I walked down to where there appears to be a cross in the grass and then part way up the very steep hill to the left.

My objective was to take this photo looking up at our house and at the jungle below it. This shows pretty well how overgrown everything had become. We are just ending the rainy season, which explains the lushness. I don't want a severe trimming and cleaning like some of our former gardeners have done. I just want a healthy trimming to maximize the beauty of the flowers, and to eliminate some excess of the more invasive plants and shrubs. For example, those large green and yellow-leaved trees behind our house all started from one small tree that someone gave Merlin. They are beautiful, but get very large and are now nearly surrounding our property, much like the banana trees have done. Because they are so large, they tend to block some of the breeze, coming from the east especially, and block the view in other directions, so a trimming is in order.

I really appreciate that Enrique will call me to look over what he is doing and ask if it meets my approval. When he began trimming the hibiscus bushes, he asked if that height was ok; I asked him to leave the others just a bit taller, and he did. I really hate to lose any of the flowers, but unfortunately, they seem to grow at the end of wild 8 foot long branches. Once trimmed, they will soon begin flowering on the shorter branches. 

I'll post some "after" photos later.