Three Things on My Walk with Clove

1.  Gumbo Limbo Tree - one of my favorite trees on our property.

The sinuous trunks and branches can withstand high winds.  These curves are the result of Hurricane Iris 20 years ago.

2.  Papaya Tree - one of many volunteers.  You can see that the birds visit this one.  I have seen brown jays, yellow headed parrots, and Montezuma oropendolas feasting on its fruits.

The ripest, tastiest fruits are at the bottom.

3.  Clove, - at around 75 lbs, she is the smaller of our two dogs.

Waiting for me to finish up with the pictures already!

That's it for today; just trying to keep the momentum up.

Yellow #2 (for Vivian)

Sometime back I posted "Yellow #1".  Here, I am finally following up with Yellow #2.  I saw this lovely Orange-barred Sulfur when we were staying at DuPloy's with our friends Chris and Sue in Oct, 2010.  They never alite with spread wings (the butterflies, not Chris and Sue.  But they probably don't either, come to think of it.), but I caught this one in flight showing off its bright colors. DuPloy's has a wonderful Botanic Garden and the grounds around the lodge are landscaped in native plants; an amazing variety of birds and other wildlife can be seen to their advantage in the natural setting.

Phoebis philea, orange-barred sulfer

Another photo from the past shows a ruby-throated hummingbird catching some nectar at the yellow flowers of Delonix regia, the flamboyant tree.  Most often you see this tree or shrub with red flowers, but in that case it wouldn't in the "Yellow #2" blog posting.  These wonderful small trees need lots of sun, but not much else.  We have several on our property and I am sure we will plant more once our major construction projects are complete.

 

In the photo below is even more yellow flamboyant, along some of the other colors we have.  And the yellow banana and the yellowing (ripening) papayas.

All of these grew at our place.  Papayas are transient trees, actually they are not even true trees.  Anyhow - they live for maybe a couple of years and then fall over, get blown over, or some such.  Our trees are usually what ever volunteers in the compost heap.

While on the subject of yellow food, here is a beauty that is rarely sold commercially around here due to its delicate flesh - a cashew "fruit".  Well, it is not exactly a fruit, but it is a sweet, juicy, fleshy thing, so fruit works for me.  In some areas it is called a cashew apple.  Like the 3 pictures above, this was taken in Oct. 2010.  Must have been a good month/year for yellow ...

The little kidney-shaped thing at the end of the fruits is actually the cashew nut.  I may be the only person in the world who doesn't like cashew nuts, but I do like the fruits. 

Coconut flowers are yellow.  You don't really think of coconuts as having flowers, do you?  They are easy to overlook, not because they are small (the individual flowers are small, but whole flowering structure is huge), but because they are tucked into the bases of the fronds and are often so high overhead that you just don't see them. This one was on a young palm that kindly presented its flower at my eye level.  There is often a lot of insect activity around the flowers.

Male and female flowers are on the same big structure.  The little blobs are tiny young coconuts.

I must have been hungry while I selected these photos - the next one is of a produce market in Placencia. Lots of good yellows there.

Starting in the yellow basket on the left edge of the photo are yellow bananas, below them are yellow onions.  In the middle column of baskets we have yellow star fruit (carambola) and some yellow corn on the cob.  Then the right hand column has yellow plantians hanging, yellow oranges, yellow limes, and yellow grapefruit.  "So where are the lemons" you ask?  I ask that a lot, too.  We rarely get lemons here.  Odd.

Gotta work on that lemon thing. 

Out of Order in Belize :-)

This should have been my second posting for our Belize trip, but it didn’t get posted due to hurricanes and lack of internet connections when I wrote it. So here it is, out of order:

Belize, Day 2
Joy very thoughtfully had awaiting us in our cabana several vases of flowers, 2 bunches of sweet little bananas, and 3 papayas – all from our yard.

The rain started to fall just as we finished getting everything into the cabana. We puttered around, getting the groceries put away and generally trying to make headway in getting things sorted out, which is a challenge in a cabana that is fairly small with limited storage space.

When the rain stopped I went outside to check on the plants and see how they had fared in the last 5 months. The native spider lilies are doing well, with quite a few in bloom. The locals consider these plants to be weeds, but we love them for their beauty and their ability to thrive in places that are too windy and sea-sprayed for other plants.

 Also of note are the white orchids that are blooming along the path to Black Creek. As I compare the photo below of the small orchid to the one above of the spider lily, I can see that the difference in their size is not very apparent.  The spider lily plants are about 6 feet wide compared to the orchid which is not even 6 inches wide. 

I also found one of the the new papaya plants that are bearing such nice looking fruit. And the best part is that they are short enough for me to reach the fruit.