Saturday, May 2, 2009

What's been happening?

It's been a while since I have added anything so here goes.
Last weekend, Janie and I went for a drive around the eastern end of Grand Cayman to get some pictures for a request made by Richard. Hope these images help you Richard! The second view is from the cabana! What a rough life we live!
The chicken population has increased. Dorothy managed to catch and rooster and hen early last week. Then I managed to catch another hen and then 3 pullets over the weekend, bringing
our population up to 9. It's more than I planned but we can always let the ones we don't want go. There were actually 4 pullets caught but one managed to sneak out from the tractor when we were rolling it to a new location. On the other hand, the escaped pullet and another hen are now following the tractor around, gleaning the food remainders when we shift location. And the answer to the big question - YES! We did manage to have 4 eggs last week. And the taste is by far superior to the store bought eggs. None this week but we are not concerned. The chickens are still getting settled in their new location.
Home Grown eggs on the left, store bought on the right.
We have been experimenting with different foods to give them - ranging from kitchen scraps to bird feed and cracked corn. They seem to enjoy it all so we are happy.
My niece has seen the tractor and has requested that I make her one too. She lives besides a large wooded areas and has many chickens in her yard. She too likes the idea of free-range eggs.
A neighbor two doors down has begun to build what looks like a portable chicken coop. I'm keeping an eye on his construction to see what happens. I also noticed that he has made a chicken trap too! Could be catching on!
Janie was talking to one of her co-workers about our new venture and the co-worker said that she had built a chicken coop and began trapping chickens. She now has over 80 in her possession! I'm impressed! Makes my little project seem like child's play!
Well, with that little item completed and successful, time to start something else.
We already have a few fruit trees in the yard. Here are mangoes and guavas - both are green but will ripen. There is nothing like picking a ripe fruit from the tree and eating it. You can smell both the ripe mangoes and guavas before even seeing them. Many times I can be found searching the tree for a ripe mango. Smelling, yet not seeing.














I have been looking at constructing a raised garden bed. While we have a year round growing climate, we are unfortunate to be a coral island with very little topsoil. There are good area with 2-3' of soil depth and other areas (like where I live) with the topsoil depth being 2"-3" or less. There are pockets of soil but they are few and far between.
The reasons are that it gives me something to pass the time on, allows me to tinker with something else and provides a food resource on an island where probably 95% of the food we eat comes from or through the USA. Countries like Australia are recommending their inhabitants to stockpile some basic food for when there are shortages. In Cayman's case, a shortage in the US will mean that there will be less to sell and if it is there, a higher price! It is already recommended that locals stock extra supplies in the event of a hurricane and most people do. I'm just taking it a bit further!
We had a bit of a joke last week. Dorothy and Janie said that it was time to cut down two bunches of bananas that had matured and were ready for cooking (yes - there are cooking and eating bananas). The plants were about 10' high so I did as requested.
In one bunch, there was a frog hiding between the hands. Dorothy saw it first and the next thing we knew was she had placed herself far away from the critter on the top of the wall !

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