stx today,comments

Sympathy crier are ya. LOL. I am usually the one who starts first.

dougtamjj did they like it here?and will they be back?

I'm looking into making the move from Vermont to St. Croix, and reading this post definitely made me smile. We do hear all of the bad in this world all of the time, and just to hear that someone else is taking things positively makes me realize I'm not the only one.

So thanks for this!! It helped -- more than just me it seems.

:0)

cool Josh, well i just learned from the guy/kid with the machete in my yard all about the manjack tree, or the sour clammy cherry, apparently the tainos used to eat it and they also made glue from the fruit, and some of the old people here still make glue from it,guy/kid said no one really eats here anymore because it leaves a bitter aftertaste.

"Sour CLAMMY cherry" tree? That's a new one to me. Have you ever had sea grape jelly? I'd love to find somebody who makes it. A friend of mine who used to live here made it once & said it's really a lot of work because of seeds, if I remember correctly.

Sea Grape Jelly
1 quart sea grape juice
5 tablespoons lemon or lime juice
1 package powdered pectin
5 cups sugar
To prepare juice: Wash sea grapes and measure. Put in fairly large, wide pot with half as much water (1 cup water to 2 cups sea grapes). Bring to a boil. Mash often with a potato masher and continue boiling until fruit is reduced to a soft pulp (about 25 to 30 minutes). Drain through a jelly bag or several layers of cheesecloth. Do not squeeze.

Place one quart juice in a wide kettle. Turn heat high and add lemon or lime juice and pectin. Bring mixture to a rolling boil. Stir in sugar and return to a rolling boil. Boil hard for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Skim foam if necessary. Pour hot into hot, sterilized jars, leaving 1/4-inch head space. Adjust caps. Process 5 minutes in boiling water bath.

Yes trw, my favorite brother and sister in law will be back eventually to settle on STX. They will do well here.

The sour clammy cherry, I forgot the name that it is called here but local island people use it for glue. It is also in my opinion quite tasty. My friend Mervin, who is originally from Nevis told me that as children they used it to glue their paper kites together and they also smeared it on the chairs of girls and occasionally on the chairs of the teachers that they did not like because it makes a brown stain on the clothes making it look like that the person who sat on it had an accident in their pants. My friend Mervin who is most of the time solemn, smiled a lot and actually laughed as he told me of how he and his friends did this to the girls and the disliked teachers.

I love my friend Mervin who is always here to look after me when my husband is back in the states. I have another story to tell about how the west Indian people here have welcomed me and watch after us. I am truly blessed.

Good night all.

Tammy

Tammy, your post in my opinion is "what living here is all about", the guy/kid with the machete was kind of amazing me as he was rattling off all the info about the tree, the locals here call it the manjack tree or the sour cherry, the clammy part came in when i yahoo'd it and read more about it, but the guy/kid told me about the glue part, which in turn tells me that tradition and knowledge are being passed from one generation to the next, he's going to show me how to grow tobacco(not pot,don't smoke it) because i'd like to learn and thats something they grow here,the guy/kid seems to be a weath of knowledge and is happy to just chat away if i'm outside working with him,lol he just yap,yap,yaps non stop,his friends no longer give him crap about working here and so that pressure is gone and he's relaxed up,he lives with his brother over in the village,his parents are in the states somewhere,most of his aunts and uncles live here in or by the village,he's part of the williams clan if anyone reading this knows Lavallee at all, that family has been in lavallee since the plantation days and have converted the old slave quarters into homes,i guess i've known most of this stuff for years but to rehear it from the guy/kid is kinda cool,he knows his heritage and does'nt seem to have a problem with all the new houses being built here by statesiders,Lavallee seems to be the last area up here being eaten up,lol but he just does'nt seem to care for mosler,haha but then i can't think of more than 2 people that actually like the man.guy/kids uncle larry adopted us when when we bought our house here and i started asking him about Lavallee in the 60's and 70's because thats his age era,he's in his upper 40's and he told me lots of history and then i met his mother and she told me older history,i don't know it just goes on and on,i like listening to the oral histories and the fact that parts of this family have lived in this spot for 100's of years gives me a sense of roots and continuity,i went to 7 different schools in 4 states before i graduated high school so i'm not really from anywhere i guess,i'd like to see this oral history somehow preserved for the future generations that come after all of us, i really think it would be cool to do sometype of a produced history of lavalle with ALL of the people who live here and some of their history and stories, ok i'm starting to sound like NPR,i'll stop now.

JManchase89, where are u in Vermont? ARe u living in STX now?

apparently i left the hose from my well running when i went to carambola last night for a burger and someone was nice enough to come in my yard and turn it off for me,and i just looked at all the mls listings for lavallee and the cheapest house is listed at 290,000 so i'm glad i bought my place after lenny went through,i'd never be able to afford anything now,it's another one of those can't sleep nights, woke up at 3 and just stayed up

hey Lizard was that you this am in gallows bay on the bike with the blue helmet, really loud spandex outfit and foot long beard? 🙂

NOPE!

trw,
If you see a guy walking with a limp and a black and white dog with an orange vest walking with a limp its me and Samson. I'm real good looking! Can't miss me.

dougtamjj, ...was wondering if your brother in law showed you how to post your pics before he left?

Yes Teri, I posted a link under the subject Mardi Croix 2008.

WOW...beautiful!!!

It is mating season for the deer on STX. My dogs were barking all night and I kept getting up but could never find what they were barking at. This morning just before sunrise I went out to hush the dogs and heard what I thought was a bull in the bush. Scared me to death. I ran back in thinking I would wait until the sun came up before investigating any futher. I kept hearing the sound and finally realized it was deer. I just got back from picking up JJ at school and saw two male deer in the middle of the road. They both had a good size rack on them. It looked like they were squaring off when I scared them and they ran back into the bush.

lol Lizard ok, hey Lizard the homeless guy now has a broom and dust pan, and the long hair guy at ace made me 2 chains for my old chainsaw, it was 25 apiece if anyone is interested,the guys at computer solutions are computering away on my computer fixing the bad thing i did and also giving me more ram,i asked about upgrading that one to vista because my new laptop came with it and they told me vista was a piece of crap, i dunno know i use vista on this and xp on the one they're fixing and i think i like vista better, the first computer the other half and i got had windows for workgroups 3.1 on it so i guess anything is an improvement over that,i have an apple from the early 80's stored away in a box somewhere with all the stuff that was with it back then. I had breakfast at rumrunners this am, the breakfast sandwich was great but the banana pancakes had like one chunk of banana in them, the island oasis banana puree makes great pancakes and french toast,hiny hint. the guy/kid is here doing his thing, i said finish everything up before monday and then i'll go to ace and rent their big power washer and he and the other half can do roof type things on monday and tuesday since rooftops wanted 5000 grand to do the roof,the other half and i know how to do the stuff we just have never wanted to well i decided it's time so it's either 5 grand or we do it ourselves and since the other half has every tool known to mankind out in the shed we do it, i told him other half your tools are getting lonely they need you, well he gave me an evil look and stomped out jumped in his truck and went to town,and the guy/kid laughed and said we were just like his parents. So i figure 2 days to clean it all up and then a couple to dry in the sun and then another 2 for the screwing and taping and then 3 to do the elastomeric,i'm thinking about 10 days total if we don't get hard rain.

I think Vista has become pretty much "standard"...there are a few features that I prefer over XP, however the way I understand it, it takes more memory. My desktop is down, I think I did a bad thing too & this time I can't fix it myself. So off to the puter pros it goes! Anyway, good luck with your upgraded system trw

hiya Teri, computer solutions just called they fixed my bad thing and told me i basically had a super computer and it need no upgrades they charge 75 an hour and it they are charging me for an hour and a half.

You guys have to stop going to those porn sites. No wonder your computers break down. 😉

and a hiya to you trw, 75 an hour is a good deal...sounds like you have some friends over at computer solutions.

WHAT???...porn sites are bad?!?...now ya tell me...LOL

Yikes!!!

just got home from the 18milebenefit job, was not a bad night i figured we'd be dead because of jump up but it was an ok night,hey Trade i just don't know what to say, Teri 75 is the posted price, this is the 3rd computer we've taken them over the years the first 2 they could do nothing with so i was losing faith but i did'nt know where else to go, none of the employees at our office max look like geeks so i just took it back to solutions and hoped this time they could figure it out, they have about 6 real pretty microsoft tech certificates on the wall, hey Trade my sister landed on STT tonight for 10 days to visit her mother so i'm seaplaning it over for lunch one day next week. STX is filling up so time off is hard to get and i have no nights off now for the next 2 weeks and only 2 days shifts off until the end of the month,make it while you can.

What does roundtrip on the seaplane cost these days? You might feel out of place here - I haven't seen any nekkid people lately - just the guy peeing by the dumpster just past Bolongo. *-)

on my way to the 12 mile job in about 30 minutes, for locals(voter reg card)it's 160 round trip i think you save 10 bucks not sure,lol Trade it's only been 40 days since i was there, one of these days i need to go back over to buffams tatoos by havensight and get my tats recolored, they're about 17 years old and faded from the sun or i can get it done here by jesse as well i suppose,but lol it sounds so exotic telling people you got tatted on STT hahaha and i'm going to make my sister do cheesy undignified stuff like the skyride and the submarine ride,lol stuff i've secretly wanted to do for a long time and never have.