Talisay

I feel like I’ve been gone a long time! I guess it has been nearly 3 months. The talisay tree in our back garden has reached unprecedented heights. Our poor neighbor in the back must be getting annoyed- he was out there this morning with a ladder trying to whack off a few of the lower branches overhanging the wall. (He has sort of taken over the alley behind our wall as part of his personal property and hates sweeping up the leaves, though the season for that has already passed.) Sigh! We have been pestering the landlord since December to trim the tree and so have our neighbors on the left. The shade is pretty nice, though. It makes it about 10 degrees cooler out back. Plus we have LOTS of birds hanging around. Some of them, the wagtails, have taken lately to bathing in the cats’ water dish, much to the cats’ annoyance! That particular type of bird bobs and wags it’s tail constantly. Extremely attractive to cats! But when they have young they mercilessly dive-bomb any cat or dog in the neighborhood.


But back to the tree. Talisay trees are popular shade trees because they tolerate poor soil and grow easily. They can be cut back every year and will grow again. They have big leaves which they shed once a year, making it a pain to clean the mess at the time but at least it's only once a year. They are common shade trees on beaches around here. As I was looking for a photo to post here I found out that these trees are called tropical almond trees and the fruit is supposed to be edible. I have never seen anybody here eat it, maybe because it looks like it would be a challenge to get the husk open. But those pesky bats (which are STILL hanging around under the roof and, uh, dripping down the wall) have accumulated quite a pile of the fruits under my window. Hmmm. Guess it's good to know in case of emergency that I have a food stockpile outside. I'll have to look a little closer and see if the bats have figured out how to open them....