Foliage 1 -- Bananas and a "basket tree"

   We have some small banana trees in our back yard that have never born fruit.  We recently discovered that one of them is growing its first bunch of bananas .....stay tuned for progress!  We're going to have to get some help from the neighbors to know when to pick them. 

 We saw this fascinating tree while out on a walk the other day.  It was rainy, so that is why the picture is so gray.  My first thought is it looked like a pineapple tree ....which I knew was impossible since pineapples grow on the ground! 

Closer inspection revealed the pineapples were simple baskets placed over the fruit of the tree to keep it safe from birds until ripe.  I couldn't help but wonder who had the job of climbing out to the very most fragile branches of the tree to apply the baskets! 

Drinking the rain!

So it's rainy season now.  The stroller never leaves the house now without the rain cover stashed along, and it gets used about half of the time we go out.  It turns the stroller into a little spaceship with the boys safe and cozy inside ...definitely better than the throw-a-poncho-over-the-top technique we used with the old stroller.  Here is Dave pushing the boys home after a lunch date ...Josh is asleep in front. 

As we live in the tropics, this is nothing like the almost freezing Pacific Northwest rain I grew up with.  This rain is warm and the temperature is never less than 75 degrees during the day ...we actually don't mind walking in it cover free from time to time.  That can be a cultural stress point, however, as the locals think it is very strange to get rain-wet on purpose....even stranger (and poor parenting) to let your children play in the rain. 

Yet, how could we resist when Jonathan was having so much fun, the good clean kind? 

""I'm drinking the rain!"

Things that are different: Asian problem solving -- what would you do?

I wish I had a picture for this post ....but I just don't.  But perhaps it's for the better!

So today we had a deluge rainfall, right at lunchtime when Jonathan and I go to school to socialize with the students and eat with Dave.  I put Jonathan in the baby backpack and we carefully headed to school under a big umbrella.

What would YOU do if you were driving along on your motorcycle and it started raining REALLY hard?  No poncho available.

Why, you simply stop by the side of the road, take off your outer clothes and stash them under the bike seat.  Then you continue driving in your underwear until you reach your destination, towel off, and put your dry clothes back on!

I saw this today at least twice!  It doesn't work for women, though.