We decided to head back to the beach again to indulge in lobster one last time before the season closed. It was off to Ivan’s Island Annual Lobster Bash, which is a small 3 acre island about 6 miles off the coast of Placencia. This is the second year we’ve done this and it has always been an awesome time. For a set price you get a t-shirt, a boat ride there and back, lobster, chicken, fish, sides, beer, rum drinks, plus all the fun you can handle.

This year I heard that they cooked up about 180 big whole lobsters. I have no idea how much fish or chicken they cooked and I can’t even imagine how much beer or rum they went through. All I know is that it was one big party and everyone was having a great time.

Ivan’s Island offers tours and welcomes day guests to the island. They have a small bar, bbq grills, tables, hammocks, a pool table, corn hole, swings in the water and the snorkeling is great. Even if you set up a tour with someone besides Ivan, you can still stop on the island for a cold beer or spend the day, just ask your boat captain. They also have a couple of small cabins you can reserve if you want to spend a night or two.

We brought back some King Mackerel from our fishing trip a few weeks ago. Kelley cooked up a couple of nice pieces that turned out flaky and delicious. We gave Amanda four nice pieces and the rest I ended up putting in the smoker with some apple wood chips. Kelley uses the smoked fish to make a dip that is delicious. King Mackerel are a lot of fun to catch, very strong fighters, high jumpers and can get over 30+ lbs. Ours weren’t nearly that big, but they still put up a great fight.

After two months of curing and packaging, we are finally done with making corned beef this year. We ended up making about 200 lbs of corned beef briskets for everyone’s St. Patrick’s Day feast, all of which were immediately gone. We still have three briskets left that haven’t been processed, but we are going to keep those for ourselves and make them into pastrami.

We are currently drying all the cacao we picked a few weeks ago, and there was a lot of it! Before we dry the cacao, it has to ferment for a week, which is when all the liquid drains off. We usually just throw that liquid away, but this time we thought we’d try something. I guess you can make liquor or vinegar from the fermented drippings. Since we ended up with three quarts of liquid, we opted to try to make some cacao vinegar. I’ll let you know in a month or so how it turned out.

We still have about 30-40 lbs of dried cacao beans from last year that are ready to be ground into chocolate. So we finally found a little time to process and make more chocolate, nothing fancy, just some bars. We did three batches, one just dark chocolate, one raspberry, and the other mint. This will be enough to hold us over for a while and a chance to get some to everyone who has been asking for it.

A few weeks ago we picked 174 ripe cacao pods, leaving a lot more on the plants that weren’t quite ready. This week we picked 105, with a bunch more that will be ready in a couple of weeks. We are still selling some to the local market, but the percentage of them we are saving for ourselves. If this keeps up, we are going to have to hire someone to roast and shell all the cacao beans, which is the big time-consuming part of making chocolate.

Last year our custard apple tree was looking very scraggly, so we gave it a big trim. This year it came back looking great and is loaded with custard apples. We love to chill them and eat them just the way they are, but they are also great in smoothies or made into ice cream.

Custard apples are hard to find in the States because they do not ship well. It’s a shame that most people will never get a chance to taste one because they are sweet, creamy and delicious. Mark Twain described it as “The most delicious fruit known to man”.

It was three and a half years ago that we planted a bunch of 2-3 ft. tall fruit trees on our farm lot. In that short time, they have gotten a pretty good size and some of them are starting to produce. For the past month we have been picking mandarin oranges and there are still quite a few left on the tree. We were very excited to see that so far, three of our mango trees are breaking out with blossoms. So hopefully we get a decent amount of mangos this year.

The thing we are most excited about is that one of our avocado trees that we planted from a seed is full of blossoms. It was the first one so far to break out with flowers, and it’s loaded. This is the first year we are starting to get fruit on the trees at our farm lot. In a few years, when all 27 trees are producing, we might need to open a roadside stand. And that doesn’t count all the trees we have on the property where we live.

Every morning Kelley puts fruit out on the bird feeder and it attracts different birds all day long. As soon as she puts some fruit out in the morning, the first bird there within minutes is always the Lesson’s Blue-crowned Motmot. He’s a beautiful bird with his neon-blue crown and unique tail shape.

There are a lot of other birds that don’t come to the feeder like the Slaty-tail Trogon (pictured above). He’s a good-sized bird with a big red belly and will usually sit still in the trees for pictures. We also commonly see his cousin, the Black-headed Trogon, but he has a big yellow belly and a black and white tail.

Overall February was a wild ride, it was the longest birthday month I’ve ever had. We had friends come down for a first-time visit, then Darren and Dawnetta were here, our neighbors Craig and Monica came down for a few weeks, and our other neighbors Chuck and Roxy were also here. Plus, we went over to Placencia twice, where we met up with our friend Dan and some other friends. Then throw in a fishing trip with lunch on an island and another weekend with an island Lobster party. It was a very busy month and now we need a little rest, but we know that won’t happen anytime soon, as there is always a lot to do around here.