Friends with benefits

On Friday evening my girlfriend who lives in the country popped by for a visit.
In her hand she held a bag.
And in that bag were many goodies from her garden.

There was also a surprise treat. She had made conkies too.

The avocado was a gift from my neighbour up the street.

I love figs (miniature bananas), and I welcomed these more than ever since I can't have bananas.
She has promised me a sucker from her fig tree to plant. I'm not sure how many figs Brazen and crew will let me get but I am willing to try.

Conkies

A pumpkin that her monkeys had allowed her to harvest was cut into several portions to share among friends.
She also managed to reap a few sweet peppers despite the monkeys beating her to it most of the time.

A few wax peppers too.

One solitary cucumber....the monkeys were having a ball with her crops....she was at her wits end what her next step should be.
I reminded her about the trapper.

It will be ready

Here I go again......
Another avocado story.....another story about wayside vendors and their "tricks" that they try to play on their customers.....another Friday in the city story.
If you remember my first avocado (pear) story, it revolved around ten cents.

I spent part of my Friday morning in the city taking care of business.
I did not drive that day and as per usual I found myself walking back to the terminal to take a mini van home.
When avocados are "in season" I make the most of it by enjoying at least one per week.
I passed several vendors along the way, and stopped at most of them to enquire of their prices. 
I must mention that we have several vendors that travel from the other islands to hawk their produce here on the island.  Our local vendors don't care for this practice, but it is what it is.
Many loud disputes can be witnessed between both parties regarding "stealing customers" and "wunnah for-ners always tekking food out me mout" as well as other allegations and threats that are not suitable to be repeated on this blog.

So I'm walking and price inquiring and most folks are showing me three sets of prices for the avocados according to the sizes displayed......or so I thought.
The prices ranged from $4.00 (small) to $6.00 (a good hefty looking one).
I stopped at a tray belonging to a non-local of East Indian descent that had several avocados displayed.
"How much are the pears?"
Using her right hand to point out the various sizes she said, "Dese are four dollars and dese are five dollars and dese are six dollars."
The guy that was ahead of me selected two pears from the four dollar section.
Taking the pears from the guy she proceeded to put them in a bag and then said, "Dah is ten dollars."
"Wait wuh kinda foolie you tink I is, you just say dat dem is four dollar pears, you could keep de frigging pears" and with that he threw the bag back into the tray and stormed away.
It was now my turn, I too selected a four dollar pear and handed it to her along with a five dollar note and stood waiting for my change, and she said, "Dah is a five dollar pear dat you got you know."
I promptly handed her back the pear and she handed me back my money with a mean glare in her eye.
I walked away shaking my head...but all was not lost.
There ahead of me was a nice young Bajan lady with a tray full of delicious looking pears.
"How much are your pears dear?"
"Five dollars," she said.
The pears were big and lovely and worth every bit of the five dollars so I bought one from her.

 I told her what had happened further up the street and she smiled and said, "Yes that happens a lot."
The pear wasn't ripe so I asked her, "Do you think it will be ready for my Sunday lunch?"

 "Oh yes it will be," she replied " just put it in a brown paper bag or some newspaper and put it on the kitchen counter till Sunday......and enjoy."
Would you believe that today Sunday the pear was ready to eat.

It was like butter.
Despite the awful drought that we've been having it was sweet and delicious and juicy and just GOOD.
Just GOOD I tell you....sooooooo GOOD!

Kale chips

My friend GB recently mentioned that he had a bumper kale crop from his garden and that he was making kale chips....which reminded me that I had not made this healthy snack for a little while.
Today in the supermarket, I purchased a small package of kale which held two large leaves of curly kale.

 Came home and washed the leaves carefully, stripped them from the stem and then tore them into bite sized pieces.

 Dried them off properly and spread them out on a baking sheet lined with wax paper.

Drizzled them with sunflower oil and sprinkled liberally with an Italian herb seasoning blend and then placed in the oven at 150 degrees for 22 minutes.
I turned the oven off after twenty minutes and let the residual heat do its work for the last two minutes.

Hard to resist kale chips

VERY hard to resist kale chips

Removed the crispy tasty kale chips....it was very hard to eat just a few since they are very "more-ish" as we say here.
I munched every single one till they were all gone....absolutely delicious.

 They didn't even last 22 minutes.

The tale of THE lizard

Today my house finally, and I repeat finally smells nice again....phew!!
One night early in July, I saw a shadow in the corner of the dining room ceiling. Realising that it was THE white lizard (gecko) that had been terrorising me for a while, I ran for the insecticide and sprayed him four blasts from the can. 
Normally I would wait until the critter crawls away and keep check on his movements before discarding the body outside.........BUT......I instead chose to return the can to the cupboard....why oh why?
When I returned, all of two seconds later, the lizard was nowhere to be seen....darn!
I searched high and low but it had disappeared into thin air!
Two days later I detected a stench that permeated the house.  It seemed to be coming from the ventilation bricks in the passageway. 

I got the stepstool out and climbed up and using my torch I looked and looked in all the areas where the smell was coming from...but nada.
The stench grew increasingly worse as the days went by, but I still couldn't find the brute.
That lizard had been my nemesis for months.  Mr.Man had insisted on living inside the house and not on the patio with the others.  He would fill his belly up all night with the bugs that frequented the patio light at night and somehow crawl inside with a fat stomach and then use my home as his personal latrine leaving his SHIT all over my walls and floor.  He was one fat bastard and I know he was enjoying terrorising me in my own home.
So here he was now in his dead state still terrorising me.
Every day I'd open all the windows and doors wide wide wide to get the smell out, but it was all in vain.
The smell continued to "light up de place" as we say here.
It was then I decided to help out the situation by purchasing a new air freshener.

An AirWick automatic air freshener.  I chose a Hawaiian scent which I hoped would help, and to be honest it did help, but just a little.  That dead lizard continued to give me a run for my money. It seemed as if the smell was following me wherever I went in the house (you know like how a fart does.)
I googled how to find dead critters in a house, and would you know it, there were thousands just like me going through the same thing with lizards, rats, possums, bats, racoons, you name it, all kinds of creatures were dying in other peoples homes too, and they couldn't find them either.
It was comforting to know that I was not alone.

As you already know, I've got some very nice male friends who come to my aid in any sticky situation, and this was one of those kinds of situations.
They came by and told me they had great "smellers" and they tried to "nose" out the lizard, but just couldn't find it. It kinda reminded me of the Froot Loops cereal ad with Toucan Sam, "Follow your nose, it always knows."  This time the nose was a failure.
I decided I'd just play the waiting game and look out for the maggots (yes, I know gross.)
No maggots showed up for the party, but one day I saw a fly buzzing around in the area and I followed it, but it too seemed to give up after a few minutes and flew back outside the open door.
I resigned myself to enduring the stench of that dead lizard for the next four weeks....pure freaking torture for someone who prides herself in a clean home.
Today is the first day that there is absolutely NO trace of a scent of that darn creature.
Today I can take a breath of nice clean air....today is a day to be thankful.