A Few Photos

It's hot down here; highs in the mid-80s F (>29C) with "feels like" topping 100F due to the high relative humidity.  We venture out in the morning and again in the evening with a quick noontime walk in the shade for the dogs.  The weather pattern will break in another 3 days or so.  Whew!!!

Barnie in a sploot.  Or is that a semi-sploot?

It was so miserable even at dawn this morning that Barnie refused to walk more that the bare minimum.

The air is thick with moisture, but no rain in sight.

Lots of bird nesting activity, though.  I have been watching a pair of Social Flycatchers tending the nest they built at eye level just off the veranda where I sit every morning with my coffee and computer.  I think they may have a helper, too.  Good thing since they have to fend off big, marauding Brown Jays who want to eat their young!  And they also have to chase off the Kiskadees who want to steal the nest for their own use.  The parents are doing a fine job and it won't be long until the nestlings fledge out into the world.  The Kiskadees finally settled on another nest site.

Kiskadee nest in the crotch of a gumbo limbo tree.  Their favorite place to nest used to be the rain gutters until we put an end to that with gutter guards.  Don't want nest debris and bird poop in our water supply!

A little farther afield I came across these sizable owl pellets.  Fur was visible upon a closer look.  Not sure what kind of owl it might be.

Life and death go on in our backwater world.  We watch as the world at large goes to hell, with the trampling human rights and real freedoms - not bullshit freedom to not wear a mask, but actual freedom to live and speak and to procreate or not procreate without the will of others being forcefully imposed upon you.  We continue to send financial support (ACLU, Planned Parenthood, subscriptions to various news outlets to support journalism) and try not to feel helpless to change things.

The Coral Tree Cafe

The coral tree (Erythrina fusca) is in full bloom right now, and it is a busy place!  All the birds, from the small hummingbirds to the large Montezuma oropendolas seem to love it.  Even the insectivorous woodpeckers are drawn to it to feast on the flies, bees, and wasps that adore the flowers.  Here is the view of it from our back veranda.

This particular tree has orange flowers.

About 5 years ago, when the tree was only about 15 feet tall, and surrounded by taller, weedier trees, one of our workers pointed it out to me.  I had no idea it was there because it had never bloomed.  

It has a full canopy with lots of room to grow even more.  That's it behind the small banana plants.  You can see the tomatoes in our raised beds, plus some coconut palms.

So we cleared its competitors away to give it some space.  Two years later, it had a few blossoms, the next year it had more, and now, well - just look at it!  

Multi-trunked tree.

Fortunately, it can tolerate a high water table of brackish water, which is what we have here - most of our vegetables are in raised beds to keep their roots  happier.

A few spent blossoms on the ground.

I don't have a good photo of the inflorescence on the tree - they are way too high - but I do have a close-up of a single fallen blossom.

A very complex structure.  I think some insects get trapped in it.  

Hummingbirds swarm the tree in the early morning hours and then later on other birds come.  No photos of the woodpeckers or brown jays, but I did get some shots of Montezuma Oropendolas.

That's a Montezuma Oropendola in the center of the image with the blue patch on its face.

And here it is showing off its yellow tail.

Larger than an American crow, smaller than a raven, these oropendolas are the largest member of the New World Blackbird family.

For a few more weeks yet, the birds will feast at the Coral Tree Cafe.

Mofongo and A Jay's gotta eat, too!

We had some green plantains, so Dennis decided to make mofongo.  For those of you not familiar with plantains, they look like bananas on steroids; which isn't surprising since they are close relatives of bananas.  Unlike bananas, you can't eat plantains raw.  But there are so many things you can make from plantains.  I haven't met a plantain I didn't like.  ;-)  You use green plantains to make savory dishes, like mofongo and tostones, yellow plantains to make some dessert-type dishes as the starch starts to turn to sugar, and fully ripe black plantains to make other things I haven't tried yet.  So far I have eaten our plantains before they got that far!  

So Dennis set out to make mofongo, which he had never made before.  I have eaten it several times and really enjoyed it.  If there are any mofongo purists reading this, you may want to avert your eyes from the upcoming description!  Every recipe we have seen for mofongo calls for bacon or other fatty pork.  I thought this would be a problem for Dennis since he does not eat red meat; he only eats fish, shellfish, or poultry.  So I was surprised when he bought real pork bacon for this recipe instead of turkey bacon which he could not obtain.  I knew then that he was determined to make real mofongo.  So much for good intentions.  I helped him peel the green plantains which he then sliced into 2 inch thick sections before frying them in deep oil.  For the first batch, he had the temp too high or cooked them a little too long, because the outside got hard and crispy.  The next ones were a little better, but still too hard.  We used them any way.  The next step calls for smashing the cooked plantains with oil and garlic  and then add in the crumbled bacon to make something akin to very dry and lumpy mashed potatoes.  This was difficult to do with the over-cooked plantains, but we persevered and added extra oil to compensate for the dryness.  

Normally mofongo is served in large balls formed from the mashed plantains.  Sometimes the balls are stuffed with other meat or fillings.  Ours was still too dry so we added some cooked calaloo (sort of like spinach but tropical) and mushrooms to try to make it more moist.  It tasted pretty good at this point, but we planned to eat it the next day, so Dennis put in the fridge.  When he got it out the next day it was drier than ever!  The chunks of plantain were hard and stiff, totally inedible.  So I suggested that he steam it.  He did and it actually worked, although I don't think the end product actually qualifies as mofongo, it did taste pretty good.  But it tasted best when stuffed in those peppers with brie cheese.  We will explore that taste combination in future efforts, but will try for a more traditional mofongo first.

We were sitting on the veranda (that's where we are most of time, it seems) and I say a brown jay on a palm frond, which seemed unusual. It was hopping along the rib so I got some photos of it.

What is the jay doing on the palm?  They usually hang out in the seagrape or tropical almond tree.

Yes, I'm looking at you!

 It joined its sibling on another frond and the sibling (to the rear) had something in its beak.

You can see a small out of focus green thing in the jay's beak.

 The jay started dragging the green back and forth along the leaflets of the palm frond and carried on for some time.

It finally dawned on me that it was either trying disarm a wasp or perhaps scrape stinging hairs off a caterpillar.  So I went out to see what I could find on the palm fronds.  I found one large caterpillar about 2 inches long on the underside of a palm frond.

The caterpillar was very handily located just over my head.  My telephoto lens was no use; I had to go back in for the normal lens.

 I took photos from as many angles as possible.

I can't tell which end is which.

Look at all those spines.

Is this the front or the rear?

Beautiful colors.

I was going to watch it throughout the day to see if I could tell which end is which, but within a couple of hours, this one was dinner for a brown jay.  I'll keep an eye out for others and also try to key this one out.  Hope to have an update soon.