Summertime, so pleasing to the eye.

Summertime in Henderson is approaching its end. It's still beautiful most of the time and well worth sharing with you, especially if you need more color in your lives.  

Here is a gallery of shots from my neighborhood and yard, with one very interesting drawing from Arram thrown in. It documents a most exciting experience from his school camping trip.

Our house is the one with the brown fence in the center of the picture.

As Arram paddled his kayak in the bay, a stingray about the size of a dinner plate jumped completely out of the water in front of him.  This is him saying, "Whoa." 

Our house is just around the corner to the left in the distance. 

I've been walking past these flowers in Jeanne's garden...and today I had my camera.  Who knew they looked like this, when you look closely that is.

Maybe another butterfly will come along...

Here's my fig tree, but let's look closer at it too.

They are getting close to being ripe now...

And Amiri's avocado tree is very healthy looking. 

It Has arrived, as I hoped it would. Here is a short series...

What a world the camera allows us to see, huh?   

Close up of a Butia fruitia

And another shot, showing the colors.

And what summer would be complete without a treat from Mr. Whippy?
This ice cream truck comes by every Sunday evening about 6 pm, playing Greensleaves as it slowly cruises the neighborhood.  

Tonight, Allie had promised the boys an ice cream treat for dessert. When they heard the truck coming, they dashed out and flagged him down. Doesn't get any better...    -djf

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

I was walking past a Samoan grocery store in downtown Henderson the other day and I read the sign they put out on the side walk.  "Fresh breadfruit here," it said. 

"Ooh," I said. Well actually, I said it mentally, so I don't know if the quotation marks around the Ooh that starts this paragraph are strictly necessary. Still, my Ooh, regardless of the punctuation requirements for a thought, meant that I intended to stop immediately and see what fresh breadfruit looked like and how much they cost. And how big they were. Jackfruit belongs to the same genus and commonly weigh 30 pounds after all. Since I was carrying only my backpack today and I already needed to bring home milk and juice, my available space was limited. I hoped that breadfruit would be more portable than some jackfruit are.

As it turned out, the breadfruit is the shrimp of the Artocarpus genus and is only grapefruit-sized. Since that was the case, I came, I saw, I purchased. In fact, I brought home two of them to experiment with. 

And something clicked inside my head. "If breadfruit are available, I'll bet this would be a good time to pick up some other tropical fruits," I said. (It was mentally again.)

And so, Jeanne and I set off on a Saturday morning adventure to look for fruit. And did we ever get lucky. 

We stopped at a number of Asian markets and brought home the goodies you see before you. The breadfruit are above the plate. 

On the plate, starting at 12 o'clock are longans, otherwise known as dragons' eyes. From 1 to 5 come durian. The little green thngs at the bottom of the plate are kiwi berries. At 8 o'clock is a peeled mangosteen, with the whole fruit at 9. Finally, the yellow stuff at 10 and 11 is jackfruit. (I didn't have to buy a whole one.) 

These are peeled longans. Their texture is similar to a peeled grape. There is a hard black seed inside each one. 

Close up of a before and after mangosteen. 

Let's take a closer look at the breadfruit. These are green breadfruit. I guess ripe ones don't travel as well.

O

Surprising insides, huh?

You trim the core. The edible portion is sponge-like near the center, becoming solid near the outside.

Here is a pan of pieces ready to boil.

Jeanne is making scalloped potatoes. You can see some of the breadfruit slices on the left side in this pan. 

This dish turned out very well. The breadfruit are a little denser than the potatoes are and the flavor is slightly different, but pleasant. 

I mashed the pan of boiled pieces in the photo above and added butter and milk, just like I would have had I been mashing potatoes. Then, I turned the result over to Jeanne for further processing. 

She makes wonderful potato pancakes. We all like them, but Arram loves them. He is always the one who finishes the last pancake on the platter, after politely inquiring of course, if anyone else want to share it. 

Jeanne made up a batch of p. pancakes, but with 100% breadfruit. She adds onions, and flour and an egg, so the source of starch in them was diguised a little. We were curious what the reactions around the table would be. The pancakes disappeared every bit as fast as ever. No comments at all about the substitution. I had to admit that I noticed no difference myself. 

The best source here for specialty fruits are the Asian markets. I know without a doubt, if any of you looked at such a market near you regularly, you'd be sure to find something interesting eventually. And hey, we all get cravings now and then. Like this guy does-

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/1dc4bb27-ea0e-4b2f-93a1-c0a33218a879

When you get your craving for fruit, I think you should go for it! (And if you do, I'd love to hear about what you thought of it, good, bad or indifferent.)    -djf

Red skies at night, sailors' delight

I was climbing the stairs to our bedroom one evening and the light that was coming in through the large window behind me and coloring the steps and walls was of a weird reddish sort. "Ah-ha," I said, and dashed (well, sort of) up the last couple of steps, hurried across the room and grabbed my camera from my desk, "a sunset!" 

Gorgeous sunsets around here and especially at this time of year are fleeting things and time was of the essence if I wanted some pictures. "There's a sunset out here," I said to the crew watching a TV movie as I went by them, but there must have been an exciting part going on because no one else joined me. They knew I'd get some shots. 

Here is the house being painted from the display going on in the west. 

You can see that the light is special. I don't need to add captions to these pictures, just enjoy them as I did. The light was changing and the colors developing so quickly...It was great to be a part of it. What a show. 

"Every day has an evening," and this one was remarkable.   -djf

Follow up

Since Dianne commented that she liked the butterfly, here are two more shots I took during the moments it stayed.

Ponsonby

I'm off today to Ponsonby. This is another of Auckland's suburbs, located about two kilometers from the city center. Back in the '60's, Ponsonby was thought of as little more than a slum, but has now become known for upscale shopping, dining and the arts. 

I'm on the 133 bus that runs into Auckland. That must be strong coffee. 

1 Ponsonby Road is the home of the Artstation. Once a police barracks, it's now a gallery.

This is an Artstation mural nearby

Ponsonby lies along the top of a ridge. Looking one way, I can see Mt. Eden.

Farther down Ponsonby Road, I can see the Waitaks. 

Another mural in a passage between buildings

I've crossed Ponsonby Road now and am looking toward the city center. Look at all those construction cranes. 

You wouldn't think crossing a street could be so pleasurable. This street runs down hill toward the city center too. So much green and dappled sunlight and topping it off, a breeze is blowing up to me. It's a hot day so I'd like to just stand here a while. 

A reminder of home. 

Kiwis love to paint things, and they're good at it. 

I had a chicken burger at Burger Wisconsin today. The girl working inside had no clue as to why the name is what it is, so I looked it up and got some information I had never heard before. Check it out.    -djf

https://www.burgerwisconsin.co.nz/our-story/ https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/11770