Lucian-American Thanksgiving

 Dinner prep... I must say that cooking an entire Thanksgiving dinner in a partially equipped kitchen on my own was a little tricky, but totally worth it. In spite of the propane tank running out about 15 mins into roasting the turkey, no major catastrophes and too much food = win!

Vegetable evacuation for brining the turkey  in the veggie drawer- it worked great!

Sugar and spice and everything nice... yum

Christmas m&m's in little bowls carrying on Granny's tradition! Oh, and some healthy stuff.

Ready for the oven

Mashed potatoes and broccoli in the works!

Curried lentils mmmm...

It's Thanksgiving for Maji too :)

Roasted dasheen, plantain, green fig.

Gobble Gobble!

Jerry vs. Turkey...

 Let's Eat!

Laurent's amazing spicy mango salad!

Just what Thanksgiving ought to be: a gather of great people sharing good food and laughs :)

Grand Master Seo and me!

Then this happened... my form is bad b/c of my skirt!

On to dessert!

Master Decallie was super excited for pie!

The gang

"Make a silly face, the timer is going now!" This is getting framed for sure

Good times

Maji keeping watch.

It was truly a wonderful Thanksgiving! I hope all of you had good food, people and laughs wherever you were celebrating :) 

My morning commute11/23

My Wednesday morning commute:

First stop- Maji belly rub!

"Team SLP" the opposition party's newest campaign slogan...

Rush-hour southbound into Castries

Two girls on their way to school. It's good to have a friend with an umbrella with all the sudden downpours around here!

Just as suddenly, the rain leaves and a rainbow appears! Since they were often called "green gold" in the heyday, it seems fitting that there are bananas at the end of the rainbow in St. Lucia ;)

This farmer has had to cut back their farm (chop down all the banana plants) because of Black Sigatoka, a fungus plague that is ravaging the extremely vulnerable industry.

The only alternative to the cut back is simply to abandoned the farm. I'm seeing more almost every week. This farm was being managed as recently as the end of Sept. but no more...

Research assistants, Riparian zones and a Rally: 11/20

I spent this afternoon training 2 research assistants who will visit my riparian buffer zone case studies in Jan, Feb and Mar while I'm as locals say, "off-island". Right now there is an enormous (as in thousands of people) political rally going on at the cricket grounds behind my house. The anthropologist in me says I should go explore the crowd, but the ecologist in me says I'm tired after a long afternoon of work and the morning beach-workout and not that excited about a large, loud, drunk crowd. So instead I'm going to post photos and listen to the bands perform and the speeches (I can hear every word anyway). It was a fun afternoon and we made a lot of progress!
Here are a few neat things that I saw along the way (If you want to see any photos more clearly, just click on them and they will get bigger):

How much vegetation do you see and how much exposed soil?

Invasive African Snail- they are causing lots of problems all over the island. I should have killed it, but I hate the crunch n' squish that happens when I accidentally step on them, so I let this lil guy live...

Slug trails on wild Dasheen leaves- pretty!

Giant (4"+) slug having moved on from the Dasheen...

Awesome research assistants!

Check this out- this is the river where I posted the flooded bridge photos earlier this week. Look to the right of the bridge, the man-made baskets and bank engineering have all burst. Look to the left, the tree roots along the bank are holding strong! Yes, it's a little more complicated then that, but not much, sometimes nature just does it better...

Another Cretaceous moment as the sun set fast! It is getting dark by 5:30ish this week- crazy!

River fish!

That's the Rally- all the yellow spots are people dressed in yellow to support the UWP...

11/19

Cattle Egret enjoying a breakfast buffet of the freshly exposed bugs in my neighbor's weed-whacked yard. Yum!

Vigie beach where I met with a farmer this morning for a last interview. If you look closely at the horizon, you can see the neighboring island of Martinique!

Even beautiful days include sudden squalls, we had to take cover in B to finish up the interview.

Thurs 11/17

A good and long day:

Hibiscus flower bloomed this morning on my way out the door

Maji, in a rare calm moment after his morning belly rub :)

This typing is to center this caption in the way tI"Bananas & Broomsticks"   so hopefully you will only be able to see the shot from inside a farmer's house- I think it looks like the banana leaf is trying to come inside!

Sometimes it feels like I work in the Cretaceous period...

On my lunch break I sat for a while and was eventually joined by a mongoose!

Mongoose eating an invasive African Snail, and another mongoose sitting up on the wall waiting to steal said snail (he was successful about a minute later). They are very playful animals and highly entertaining to watch!

Refueling "B the Beast" at sunset after a long day of work on my way to Tae kwon do :)

Trying something new

Hi there! Its been a while, like months and months. In fact- as of today, I only have one more month here in St. Lucia. I have lots of back logged partial posts that I hope to do at some point, but instead of working on them or feeling guilty about them and not posting anything, for this final month I am going to try something new and post a "my day in photos" with the aim of a minimum of 1, and max 5 10 (oops!) photos that capture something about the day I'd like to share. I probably won't make it everyday, but I'll try to do it with some frequency!

Heavy rains in the night flooded my bedroom floor and this bridge on my way to work this morning- look familiar Claire, Meg, Anna or Julianna?

Early morning mist rising over the mountain in the distance

The banana industry continues to plummet in the wake of Hurricane Tomas and a full-on plague of Black Sigatoka fungal disease. This farmer is trying to diversify by planting cacao trees [the short green seedlings in the black pots in the center]  under the bananas and will eventually cut down the bananas once the cacao is established. Its a long term plan/ gamble, because the cacao won't be ready to harvest for 5 years...

Tadpoles in the rain filled tire tracks on the farm road! The frogs were gettin' busy in the rain ;)

I had to hack my way through these giant leafy plants that grew over one of my riparian buffer/erosion survey sites in the last month- the plants were 3-6' tall and everywhere. Luckily very easy to cut down and not sharp unlike some others I have to deal with!

Look in the center of the valley the river I'm monitoring runs through there. Where it meets the sea, you can see a khaki/tan color- that is all the erosion running into the river and being carried as sediment to the mouth of the river and into the Atlantic Ocean from last nights rains. But shhh erosion isn't a problem.....

Elections in St. Lucia take chalking to a whole new level, only with spray paint! The party in power (United Workers Party aka "Flambo" for their flame symbol) has taken it upon themselves to spray paint a mock ballot with a vote cast for Flambo in nearly every intersection on the island. They are as it happens, having a rally on my back porch (well really by the rum shop/bar around the corner, but it sounds like its on my back porch) right now. Sleep is not going to come early tonight!

Really cool caterpillar in my yard...

Maji (my dog) sniffing really cool caterpillar... seconds before getting a bite on the snout- ouch!

Maji trying to figure out what just happened and staying a safe distance from the really cool and feisty caterpillar...

So here goes: