Tuesday, May 27, 2014

The figs are in!

Well here we are coming up on Ascension Thursday and this blog entry will be about figs.  No, not about the holy events of the Easter season, or our upcoming Confirmation (if the Archbishop will ever commit to a date) or about so many holy experiences with our CCD kids or serving the Haitian shanty town - nope - figs.

Here in the Bahamas we have fig trees.  They grow to be huge and every year I promise myself I will take some pics and do a whole blog entry about them - well after five years I am finally getting around to it.

The figs here are not what most people imagine when the word fig is mentioned.  Usually we think of a pear-shaped fruit about the size of a golf ball - here they are closer to berries, but just as sweet and great in your morning oatmeal.

We have two fig trees on the property in Fresh Creek, one alongside the driveway and another at the top of the hill nearer to the church.  When the figs get ripe they drop their berries and the birds go nuts for them.  All the ground feeding birds like doves just swamp the place, while gulls squawk and swoop down upon the tops of the trees picking off as many as they can get.

Here is a pic of the tree near the church.  It is so big that we can park the van under it to protect it from the heat of the sun.


Here are a few close ups of the branches showing the figs that are getting ripe.





They really are sweet and go great in my cereal or in some of the banana bread recipes Ginni has come up with.

In other news - we have had a run of everything breaking at the same time.  The van needs new shocks (no surprise with the roads here) and a new universal joint in the transmission - AND - the roof is leaking.  Yup, Ginni was driving the van during the May rains (Monsoon May we call it) and rain dripped on her head from the roof.  We checked it out and, yup, there is a rust spot the size of a nickle right over the drivers side on the roof.  So those are things we need to take care of .

Then we began to smell gas in the kitchen, then had one of our 2 propane tanks run dry after only a few days use.  Turns out it was just a loose fitting outside the house, but $100 of propane just leaked out over night.

Not to be outdone, my body also joined the revolt.  I've developed a rash on my right leg that is very itchy. Lord knows what I picked up where but we will have to see a dermatologist in Nassau.  We have poison ivy-like trees here called poison wood where the leaves, the bark, every part of the tree is a curse, but I haven't been in the woods lately so who knows.  We will see.  I have told you in earlier blogs that bush medicine is very popular here.  Maybe I should go see Miss Daisy and she might know what to do.

Till next time - peace.