Spring 2017

I am many moons behind in my writing…again. How to even recap all that has happened in three months? If I shared every experience, every challenge, every achievement, every setback, I’d be writing a book. Yet I find myself writing in a more contemplative manner; personal, political, and social notes that may never be read, yet beg to be written. I’ll not burn your eyes with those words here.

I last left you, my readers, halfway through building my new tiny home; a self designed and built wooden bow-top caravan, reminiscent of the horse-drawn Gypsy caravans of centuries past in Europe. While my carpentry and paintwork in no way live up to the incredible skills of those artisans of bygone days, the caravan did indeed get finished, and I was able to move into it after less than three months of (part-time) work. I continue to embellish the exterior paintwork between rain showers, but that may go on for years–in true historic form! It’s quite lovely to have a dry, mosquito and centipede-free dwelling, albeit a slight size adjustment, going from 210 square feet to a mere 72.

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Many people have come and gone over the past months, new faces and old, with never a dull moment between. Several friends lent a hand building a roof for the wood-fired oven, a huge help in both rainy weather and mango season! Others have visited, cheered on the progress, and sampled the ever-changing menu; enjoying everything from mofongo to falafel to rhum cake and cream puffs! And there are those who have insisted that I partake in social events, to whom I do owe a certain amount of gratitude for reminding me to kick back and enjoy life once in a while, between feeding everyone and building things.

The excitement of this month was the Taste Of St Croix event, which is one of the island’s most…sophisticated…food events, bringing together restaurants, chefs, and food establishments of all varieties for an evening of food, fun, and good-natured culinary competitiveness. I’m pretty excited to have come away from the event with a 1st place award for my entry in the Vegetarian category! Frederiksted (our small town on the Western end of St Croix) in general placed impressively, with five out of the seven 1st place awards! This is particularly impressive as a number of us are newer businesses, and most are not what I’d call “high end” restaurants. It’s encouraging and invigorating to see the smaller, newer, and quirkier establishments receiving recognition on the culinary front. We can do this!

I’m most of the way through my hard-earned week-long “staycation”, and am by now throughly bored with not working and quite ready to start back up next week! Meanwhile, over the weekend I’ll be doing a little demolition work, deconstructing the Nid – my original tiny house. It had its day, and whilst letting go of something that no longer serves you feels great…smashing it into a million pieces with a sledge hammer feels even better!

There will be an Indian take-out night in the next couple of weeks, so hit me up if you want to be on the list for that! It will most likely be on a Thursday night. Meanwhile, have a great weekend, and happy Easter to those who celebrate!