Walking "up bush"

Yesterday was a muggy cloudy day with no hot sun and no rain, perfect for going to the jungle, or "up bush"

 Our favorite hike is up to Steve's farm on the top of the island, I love that he owns this land, even though we do nothing with it, I dream of it for my children, that they will have it someday to do as they wish. 

I love going bush with Steve, it is where I fell in love with him, watching him so gracefully and skillfully inhabit this green paradise, and he would court me by picking me fruit and showing me all the the delights of the land, so romantic

Lots of things grow there for now

cacao fruit

Steve's uncle's house, use to be his granny's, directly behind ours (they sure love flowers!)

bri bri, a mini version of biriba, can u see M's little hand, reaching?

sweet little pillowy pods

the entrance to Steve's land

there  is this amazing volcanic rock, when you stand on it you can see for miles, the whole bay

what do the boys do? guess

cacao tree, there is a "coco walk" here, that is a grove of cacao trees

green one, growing from the trunk

pineapples

thats a load!

poison dart frogs, 

contrary to cartoon lore, you could never ever shake down a coconut from a tree, steve cut a stick and shoved it under a bunch to loosen the green ones

fresh cut coconut water, with jelly to eat when thats done

sucking cacao pods

soursop, or guanabana as they are called here, also growing out of the tree trunk

star apple, or caymito, this taste a lot like a persimmon, creamy and sweet

 mamey fruit, these grow high high in  massive tree,interesting fact: horses love them , our horse lasso used to love these. I wish i had  video of hubby pelting a stick at it and getting it down on the first try,  a true bush boy, grew up on this land, it was his fathers farm

picking some lemongrass from the root to bring to our yard for planting

chopping down a full (ready to pick but not ripe) bunch of buchu bananas to take home, buchu are the baby ones, perfect size for little hands. Interesting fact: it is almost impossible to ever find ripe bananas in the jungle, they have too many fans, bugs birds, monkeys, as they start to ripen they are devoured, you have to pick a perfectly ready green bunch and bring it home to ripen

S

 Banana bunch on our deck, and Still life with sewn fish, and ripe cacao pods.

Hope you enjoyed the farm tour!

happy tuesday