Thirsty Creatures

When things get really dry on Barbados, all living creatures have to extend their search for water. What that means for us is that things come close to and into the house.

When our cats are outside on the deck, we put out a bowl of water for them, and everything comes to share - lizards, moths, ants and even monkeys.

It’s nice to think that we are helping them in times of drought, but we don’t put water out just for them - don’t want to encourage that, especially with the monkeys. They are very cute, but they are also very smart and inquisitive wild animals and show way too much interest in us and our cats.

Hopefully the rains will be along soon and there will be plenty of water and food for all.

If you’d like to read more about Barbados, please visit my other blog, Things Barbados.

Fighting Blackbirds

I was out having my walk one morning a few days ago and heard the familiar racket of blackbirds. As I got closer, I noticed that two males were fighting - nothing new about that, but how they were fighting was what struck me and I’d never seen before.

The two birds leapt at each other feet first scrabbling at chest feathers and heads. At some point the feet of the two birds became locked together and they both fell back onto their tail ends with their feet still locked together.

After a bit of struggling they freed themselves and then proceeded to repeat the procedure. This went on for a few minutes before they finally separated and went pecking around for food with the other blackbirds that watched the fighting for a few seconds before continuing in their search for food.

It was quite fascinating to watch this aggressive behaviour with raised feet trying to do damage to the opponent. Learn something new every day.

If you’d like to read more about Barbados, please visit my other blog, Things Barbados.

Close Encounter with Green Monkey

So I had a really close encounter with a green monkey yesterday evening, and it was so exciting. I was sitting on my back deck enjoying the late afternoon/early evening with a drink, and noticed a family of monkeys playing at the foot of a huge tree behind my property.

There was a mother with a tiny new baby, a couple juveniles swinging from low hanging branches, and there was a male with an injured foot. At first I was just paying attention to this male to try and get an idea of the extent of his injury, and eventually figured out that it was literally his foot. There was no sign of blood or obvious distortion and his leg seemed fine, but there had been lots of bush fires recently, so I guess it’s possible that he stepped on a bit of hot debris.

Anyhow, I decided to get the binoculars to get a better look at the mother and baby, so I went inside as quietly as possible to fetch them. By the time I came back a minute later, one of the juveniles was on my deck railing just sitting and looking around with interest. One of our cats was sitting nearby and paying attention but did not seem to be remotely distressed.

I stood there at the door for a long while just watching. I didn’t want to frighten him/her away. The monkey went back and forth on the deck railing a bit, checking things out, and then jumped down onto the deck, went straight to the cat water bowl that was just a few feet away from me, and had a drink of fresh water. He/she seemed to know exactly where it was going, so I presume it’s done this before. He looked up at me, saw me and continued drinking - too comfortable around humans for his/her own safety I think.

Then it jumped up onto the side railing and climbed the nearby palm tree to eat some of the peanut-sized nuts. Once it had gone out of view up the tree, I quietly opened my screen door and went onto the deck and sat on my little bench where I had been earlier. The monkey heard me and peeped down to see what had made a noise and continued eating the little nuts. So I just sat and watched.

When the monkey was done eating, it scampered back to re-join the family that was still at the base of the tree. Meanwhile, the male with the bad foot had gone around the side of the building and was no longer in view.

With binoculars in hand I proceeded to examine the mother and baby plus the juveniles that were still playing in the lower branches. It was fascinating. With my binoculars trained on one of the juveniles, it started to come towards me. Back it came onto my deck and up into the palm tree to grab some more nuts, before scampering off into the tree. The sun had set by this time and all the remaining monkeys climbed up into the tree to settle for the night. And this morning, bright and early, my little juvenile friend was back on my deck drinking water.

If you’d like to read more about Barbados, please visit my other blog, Things Barbados.

Fruit Trees Are Flowering

Already mango and avocado trees around Barbados are covered in flowers. Last year, the avocados were few and far between, but I can see that this is going to be a bountiful year.

My mum’s mango trees look like they won’t be producing a lot of fruit this year, but oh my, last year was the best ever. And everyone’s trees bore well last year.

But it’s not only avocados and mangoes. Plum and golden apple trees are also flowering profusely, as are guava and sugar apple. Looks like conditions are right for lots of local fruit, and I can’t wait!

If you’d like to read more about Barbados, please visit my other blog, Things Barbados.

Pawpaw (Papaya) Trees

Pawpaw (papaya) trees will sprout up just about anywhere on Barbados. I have one growing wild behind my house next to a tree stump. I would guess that a bird (or could’ve been a monkey) that had eaten some pawpaw including at least one seed, perched on the stump and pooped out a seed. That seed that arrived on the ground complete with fertilizer, has now sprouted to become a young tree about four feet tall and growing.

I will have to keep a close eye on this tree as it gets bigger to ascertain whether it is a male or a female tree (yes, that’s right), and if it’s the latter, it won’t produce any fruit unless there is a male tree nearby ... which there isn’t. Unfortunately, this one may already be showing signs of disease.

The pawpaws in Barbados have been devastated by Bunchy Top Disease in recent years. Entire crops of trees have been wiped out, and the few trees that are still around are struggling to survive. It’s easy to tell if the tree is infected as the leaves at the bottom start to turn brown and shrivel (like the one in the photo), and then it gradually takes over the entire tree. One is supposed to cut down the tree immediately it becomes apparent that it is diseased, but most people wait and harvest the few fruits that are produced before the entire tree is overtaken by the disease. However, a few trees around the island have survived, but the vast majority of pawpaws available for purchase are now imported.

The pawpaw is a milk tree, and the sap is poisonous, stains clothing and will blister your skin if not washed off thoroughly. If you pick the green fruit, you must score the skin with a knife to let the milk drain out or the fruit will be bitter when it ripens. Green pawpaws are made into a delicious stew using brown sugar, molasses, a piece of cinnamon stick and some vanilla - yummy served warm with some ice cream.

The leaves are large and fingered, similar to those found on the breadfruit family of trees. The stalk of the tree is ridged with growth circles and the flowers are a non-descript pale yellow-green colour, flowers that become magnificent dark green and then orange fruit as they ripen. The size and shape of the fruit can vary quite a lot from small pear-shaped specimens to enormous 3 lb fruits with thick flesh. I have had delicious pawpaws that are just a few inches in length but are oh so sweet. A squeeze of lime on the fruit can enhance the flavour too. It’s hard to beat a good pawpaw!

If you’d like to read more about Barbados, please visit my other blog, Things Barbados.

Aloe

Aloe is a very common ingredient in all kinds of skin care products, and it grows in many gardens around Barbados (my own included), and wild in some parts of the island. Locally made soaps and body lotions may contain local aloe.

As with most succulents, aloe is very easy to grow, and it flourishes with little or no care. Aloe stalks are barbed along the edges and, though the sap is healing, it also stains clothes and skin a dark yellow-brown colour. The sap also has a funky oniony smell.

Aloe flowers appear on a long stalk and are very attractive to bees and wasps. The plant is usually 18 - 24 inches in height and spreads outwards quite quickly. If you can safely get at a sucker, just stick it in a pot and it will grow.

If you’d like to read more about Barbados, please visit my other blog, Things Barbados.

Barbados Sugar Cane

Barbados has been well know for it’s sugar and rum for literally hundreds of years. Crop is about to begin so I thought it would be a good time to talk about the plant from which these things come, sugar cane.

Sugar cane is a member of the grass family, a very tall and robust species of grass, and it is the stalks that are crushed between heavy rollers to produce sugar cane juice, which is then boiled down to produce sugar and molasses. Molasses is made into rum, and is a great addition to things like banana bread and coconut sugar cakes.

The sugar cane is cut at the base by a harvester (only that growing on steeper slopes is harvested by hand nowadays), and a tractor-drawn cart drives alongside the harvester to collect the cane stalks that are automatically cut into two foot lengths. The leaves (or trash) fall to the ground where they remain unless the field is being ploughed.

The sugar cane plants put out long feathery flower stalks late in the year, at which point the cane plants are “ripe”, however, they are not harvested until several months later as they are given time to mature and the stalks to fatten with more juice.

The sugar cane harvest in Barbados lasts for a period of three to four months, during which time much of the island is denuded of the rolling green fields of cane. At the moment there is one working sugar factory on the island, Portvale Sugar Factory, and there are plans for a second (Andrews) to be renovated and converted into a multi-purpose factory for processing the entire sugar cane plant including all the bi-products that presently go to waste.

If you would like to read more about Barbados, please visit my other blog, Things Barbados.