Cashew

We discovered that one of our neighbours had a cashew nut tree. I was excited because although both my daughter and I love cashew nuts, I didn't remember ever seeing how they grew. Now we know.

Here are pictures of flowers and fruits of the cashew tree / Anacardium occidentale / anacardier. Did you know the fruit too is edible? I remember eating cashew apple jam in Senegal long ago.

Now for the really good news: it appears that they are easy to grow. My daughter gleaned a few fallen fruit and we'll experiment with growing cashew trees. Exciting times ahead!

A friendly reminder: please contact me if you intend using any materials posted on this blog. It's nice, and it's the law. Thank you!

Two Christmas Eve gifts

Tonight my daughter reminded me to take my camera along when we went to walk the dog. What a good idea! We were rewarded by a glimpse of not one, but two "new" birds. The first one we had never seen or noticed before: it was a Western plantain eater / Crinifer piscator / Touraco gris.

The second one we had had a glimpse of before, but without binoculars or a camera zoom, we could only guess. It was quite tricky to see from afar. The shape and pale greenish belly colour could have been mistaken for an unripe mango, since it was sitting in a mango tree. I however thought the fruit was somehow not hanging right and with the help of my camera zoom was able to establish it was actually a Woodland kingfisher / Halcyon senegalensis / Martin-chasseur du Sénégal.

We were so excited by our discovery. Observing our environment is one activity that we love to share. A neighbour lent us his binoculars this evening and we can't wait for tomorrow morning to discover some new little creature.

A friendly reminder: please contact me if you intend using any materials posted on this blog. It's nice, and it's the law. Thank you!