Parables in Paradise

I like parables almost as much as I like analogies. And I'm telling you I like analogies like pageant queens like tiaras. But back to parables.
Growing up I frequently heard 'there is a lid for every pot,' & I guess I subscribed to the premise. It is similar to the Hebraic concept of bashert, which states that there is a 'perfect-fitting' someone out there for every one. The reason they fit one & only one person is that we were once fused, subsequently divided, & then left to wander the earth searching for our missing, matching mate. Kind of a cross between match.com & Garanimals, I guess.
My experience was more like Huusker Dü, the old memory game where you remove 2 checkers from a board, revealing symbol pairs & try to remember where the matching pairs were. It was a little more hit or miss than bashert's certainty, & the instructions were in Swedish, not unlike Ikea kit furniture. How's that for an analogy!?
Lately I've grown very attached to a local version of a pot parable (non Marley related); 'Every pot must sit on it's own bottom.'  Though I'm trying not to take that too literally (I get off my bottom & swim a lot), I like to think I've found the balance & independence of mind implied in the island version.
I'm not ruling out a lid...just not squandering a lot of time trying to get one to fit. For now I'm fine as is, on my own (well you know) & letting off a lotta steam!

Happy

So I had an appointment that I expected to be quite somber this afternoon.  Instead I left the spot with a snappy tune in & a ridiculous grin on my oh so round head.
A friend was recently diagnosed with a serious medical problem, one that caused her to lose her voice (temporarily) & those who knew her to gain some worry furrows. After several postponements of our regular standing monthly appointment (while she was off-island for treatment), fear & anxiety were building their walls on the foundation of the unknown.
  Earlier this week I finally received the call setting firm the appointment & by the time I arrived at the designated spot today I was twitchy with uncertainty. After I've known her for 2 decades would she look/sound/feel in some sense different or diminished?
When she opened the door the music fairly bounced out the door. My friend is a diminutive person, even so I've always marveled at how unfailingly perfectly put together she is, with the final detail always a spiky pair of beautiful heels (despite the fact she works on her feet for hours at a stretch.) When the door opened this afternoon I expected flats & probably an outfit more suited to comfort than style.
She wore a perfectly cut red dress, her black apron & a gorgeous pair of strappy leather high heels.  Her voice is back, as is her smile. The only visible change is a narrow clear strip of bandage at the hollow of her neck. After the initial relief, I relaxed & only after 20 or so minutes had passed did I become aware of the song, the soundtrack to this surprise. It was Pharrell Williams' 'Happy,' from 'Despicable Me 2.'
My appointment was at 4:30 this afternoon.
She had been playing 'Happy' on continuous repeat since 9 this morning.
No one complained.

Chicken Foot* (*-note)

So somehow I managed to leave the discussion of St. Croix Agrifest 2014 without mentioning my absolute obsession from that event. I am completely fascinated by and totally enamored with...wait for it...the chicken tractor. Yes, I said the chicken tractor.
Perhaps you, like me had never heard of such a thing.  Or even better, perhaps your brain is conjuring up a picture of a rooster driving a John Deere.  But no! A chicken tractor is in fact a system rather than a vehicle.  Every evening as I was leaving the fairgrounds I had to pass the chicken tractor. It was actually an open work mesh pen or enclosure with no floor and roosts built for the chickens.  I would pass this apparatus every evening as darkness was setting in on my way off the fairgrounds. It was home to several of the best looking, fittest, chunkiest chickens I have ever seen.  I marveled at
how plump and soft feathered they appeared when all our local chickens look a little tougher and
more sinewy.
And on the final evening when I slowed down to read the educational sign attached to the chicken tractor, I discovered the reason for their fitness was the design of the gizmo.  It was in fact designed to give them a better life. The fact that it has no floor allows the chicken farmer to move the enclosure from place to place so that the chickens will have fresh green grass, grubs etc. to scratch around in.
Oh, and it was called the chicken tractor because the group of chickens within the coop performed many of the functions of the tractor – aerating the soil, keeping the grass down, and obviously fertilizing the area.

So here's to the chicken tractor, and to the many innovations and ideas that changed hands and heads during this year's Agrifest!

Chicken foot*(*note):  if I wanted to get crazy with the metaphors as I am wont to do, I might say something here about what the chicken tractor means in the big picture. I have two theories about why this thing fascinated me:

1.   Perhaps despite being able to see the larger realm, we're each given our own parcel of life, with boundaries real or imagined. The trick is to make the very best of what we've been allotted, & improve it if we can.  Or conversely…
2.  Perhaps some of us are just waiting for the moment when the coop is lifted and we can make a break for it!

Bounty (No Threat of Mutiny), by Lea Ann Robson

My sink, brimful of mangos...again

This morning, like most mornings here in St. Croix, produced much for which I’m thankful.  Regardless of my GPS locale, I’m still an American & so I’ll make a short list (because that’s what we do).  I am thankful for, & in no particular order:

FAMILY, both by birth & by choice.  For my Mom & Dennis in Florida, & my other ‘chosen’ family here on the island (& in Texas for the moment—fill up on turkey & tortillas & get your tuchas home!), I am grateful beyond words…all evidence to the contrary!  I know how lucky I am to be surrounded (near & far) by people who ‘get it,’ & who make every day interesting & goofy & worthy of a little sappy sentiment, so there!  Living this far from the mainland for two decades means I get to ‘choose’ my island family, & I’m fortunate to surround myself with a fascinating group of kindred souls with divergent interests.  We get called down in restaurants for having too much fun, & manage to make mundane tasks like shopping into events simply by going together.  We bob around in the surf & show each other our finds like big kids on a treasure hunt.   IMPORTANT NOTE here:  I’ve been verbally groveling to my much loved real family, my Mom, trying to squeeze a visit out of her.  Maybe if I write it here, she’ll consider it?  (Shameless huckstering acknowledged.)



Mu, pondering her yard

If you’ve met me, you know I also count among my ‘family’ my delightful Tasmanian devil of a dog, Mu.  And you know how grateful I am for how she improves every day of life, as all our mutts do for all of us. 

 

I am thankful for the ridiculous bounty of nature here on the island & more particularly in my yard.  I was filling my watering cans from the overflowing cistern this morning (rain barrel is already brimming) & tromped around the wet grass to check produce progress.  Both little Carambola (starfruit) trees are chock full of waxy fruit in hues from chartreuse to pumpkiny orange.  The one that produces larger fruit also supports a water lemon vine (passion fruit family, small fuzzy fruit that look like lemons wearing scalloped green ‘hats’ (sepals or calyx?).  The pineapple plants are growing by leaps & bounds & the ones in the ‘nursery’ (potted, but not in the ground) are begging to be planted.  Four big bunches of various types of bananas & plantains are hanging, fat & happy & growing by the day.  And the Julie mango tree has a stray, off-season mango hanging there ripening (& no doubt beaconing stray horses that will hang over my fence & try to ‘prig’it, ie. grab & run). 

But the surprise of the morning was cherries!  I have been busy making jewelry & ornaments & obviously wasn’t paying attention to the giant Surinam Cherry bush below my porch.  I vaguely remember smelling some sweet something on the breeze one night when I was watering the orchids, but the source didn’t register at the time.  So there they were this morning, looking like little squishy red pumpkins.  One fell off in my hand as I was inspecting it, which is the test for ripeness.  If you have to tug to get the fruit free, it isn’t ready & for the most part isn’t edible.  Like a lot of tropical fruit, Surinam cherry has an acrid taste that only dissipates when the sugars overwhelm it, ie. when it is almost overripe.  The cherry bush is taller than I am & willowy, with an appearance a lot like what we called Bridal Wreath bush back in Maryland & West Virginia.  The white bloom isn’t as showy as Bridal Wreath, but the cherries are stunners.  The first one lived up to its promise, too, dissolving on my tongue with that unique flavor somewhere between that of a cherry & a cherry tomato.  Bliss!

After checking all the fruit, I looked at the ornamentals.  Three different white orchids with magenta throats are blooming in the frangipani & sugar apple trees.  Each presents a long spray with parallel rows of big blooms, like a white-gloved sommelier offering a great vintage.  It is even more wonderful when you realize these plants were ‘goners,’ & would surely have croaked if my friend hadn’t advised me to tie them in trees.  He says when an orchid is showing signs of stress it is time to give it what it really wants, which is to live in a tree.  (Wonder if that would work with people?)

And the last oomph from the yard as I got in my car & headed for my other job was that in addition to their usual prolific periwinkle trumpets of bloom, the other variety of Thunbergia against my kitchen door was in full glory.  Three enormous white flowers against the steroid-looking (all natural though, as I don’t water or fertilize those plants at all) giant dark green leaves on the vines.  Obviously those plants are as happy & well-suited to where they are planted as I am, & for that I remain, truly thankful.