Disclaimer: This post is rather boring. I originally wrote it to remind myself, after I’ve moved on, of what my patio looks like. Of course I have plenty of pictures of various bits and corners and nooks out back, but it’s too large to take one that encompasses the entire area. My house gets so hot during the day that I really spend an incredible amount of time in this very tiny and private corner of Nicaragua. There are no accompanying stories or amusing anecdotes but I still have a lot of fond memories from being out there. Anyway, I decided to post it because there’s no reason not to.
A giant avocado tree dominates my backyard. It has large thick leaves that are never shed, so everything under it is cast in permanent shadow until the sun dips down far enough to sneak under the lowest branches. It’s often breezy enough so that rays of sun reach the ground through the bending and waving branches, but there’s no steady direct sunlight until dusk approaches. For two months out of the year I ate the best avocadoes I have ever tasted, perfect texture and perfect flavor every time. For the other ten months out of the year I thought about the avocadoes that I got to eat for two months out of the year. When they were in season I ate them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I put them in omelets, turned them into guacamole, and ate them plain with a bit of salt. My neighbors came and took them by the armfuls. The owners of the property sold them out front for twenty cents a piece. Still there were some left on the ground to rot away or be eaten by fire ants. It’s a tree determined to reproduce. Luckily I’ll get a chance to relive this once more before I leave here. This is a picture of an avocado from my backyard:
It is perhaps the dullest picture ever taken, but one I look at frequently and longingly.
And beneath the avocado tree there is more. To capture the sun that is available, the banana trees sprout enormous leaves, about five feet long and two feet wide. They shoot straight out the top of the tree in a tightly wound scroll. As they get longer the leaves start to unfurl. They slump to the side and spread out around the trunk. Banana bunches start from the same spot the leaves do, but are preceded by a purple flower the size of an artichoke. As the stem lengthens gravity pulls the flower straight towards the ground. The flower sinks closer and closer towards the earth and the hand-sized petals, one by one, curl up to reveal a cluster of tiny bananas hidden beneath. Within a week all the bananas are revealed, sometimes numbering as many as 40 or 50 to the bunch. They swell in size during the following months and the tree often cannot support the weight of its own fruit. My neighbor comes out and wedges a V-shaped branch underneath it to keep it from tipping. When the first banana shows signs of yellowing, the entire bunch is cut and can ripen away from the tree and out of the reach of birds.
The avocado tree and banana trees comprise the most noticeable flora growing in the backyard, but there is a lot more going on around them. As I write this blog, comically large fruits, dangling from the trunk just beneath the branches, dominate the slender papaya trees. On the outskirts of the patio there is a lime tree, a noni tree (a fruit that smells horrible and tastes worse), a rose bush, a mango tree, hot red pepper bushes, bell peppers, and a chayote plant that covers the fence in ivy. The coconut trees are so thin, tall, and well hidden that they go largely unnoticed until you are standing beneath and them looking up. Other medicinal plants and herbs, most of which I can’t name, grow all over the place, in the ground, in pots, in small plastic bags, and even in an old tire sliced in half. There’s always tons of mint, basil, aloe, cilantro, and oregano to be used and enjoyed. I myself have herbs planted in red clay pots that I constantly move around throughout the day to take advantage of the small patches of sun that move across my patio as the sun rises and falls. My neighbors also have an interesting plant that is harvested for the leaves, which are hung to dry then used as scouring pads. They feel like sandpaper and are tough to tear.
My backyard is green, almost jungle-like, which attracts lots of little animals. The larger animals (monkeys, sloths, alligators, snakes) stay far out of town and stick mostly to the rivers. During the day there are birds of every size and color (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, black, brown, and white) chirping and hopping between all the twisted branches of the limón dulce tree or perched in the more orthodox branches of the avocado tree. At night the toads come out and soak in the puddle formed underneath my leaky lavadero. When I venture outside after dinner to throw food scraps on my compost heap I have to use the stingray shuffle to keep from smushing them in the dark. Every once in awhile after a particularly heavy rainstorm a lost turtle with pass through as well. Mice scurry out of an old box sitting near the wall as I pass closely by. They hop up the cement stair leading into my house and hide in a cabinet beneath my sink, a cabinet in which I store nothing and refuse to open. The cat, despite its reputation, doesn’t seem too concerned with them. He’s much more interested in getting my attention so I’ll scratch him behind the ears before wandering off to sleep beneath an old useless bicycle propped up on my patio. Other less pleasant creatures take up residence as well. For some unknown reason I welcome their presence. Maybe they make it seem complete.
Off to the right are the patios of the two houses that share the backyard. In one house live an old man, his wife, and their son. In the other house live his daughter, her husband, and their children. The three houses, including the one I rent from them, form an “L” around the yard. Their patios are simple, rustic, and cozy. They cook on wood burning stoves that are in constant use and make everything smell like a campfire. I like to sit on their wooden benches and talk to them as they feed me things I can’t remember the names for. I give the plate or bowl back, tell them it was excellent, and make my way back towards my hammock that is stretched across my entire patio. It may not be the most efficient use of space but there is always plenty of room to hang laundry to dry. And between laundry and hammocking there isn’t much else I do back there, so there’s no incentive for change.
So this scene dominates my home life. There is very little else to say other than that this is what it’s like to be behind my house and that’s why I spend so much time out there. Of course on particularly clear nights it’s hard not to leave the patio, walk down the street to the dock, and stare at this:
