Coconuts for Money!`

Our property has tons of fruit trees. We don’t have enough of any single kind to do a reaping and sell the fruit, but we always have some trees with ripe fruit which we enjoy, and which we share with neighbors, friends, and pretty much anybody who asks if they can pick a few fruits.

Last week, a pickup truck with four men pulled into the driveway and one of the men asked what we do with our coconuts. I told him that we occasionally get some down for the coconut water, or we crack open a brown one to make coconut rice or coconut milk, and we share them with the neighbors…but other than that, not much. He asked if they could pick some to resell to one of the juice companies in San Ignacio. I said sure, and to my surprise he told me that they’d pay me. I went back in the house and got the camera to get a picture of the man climbing the trees with his machete to chop them down, and about an hour later the man came over, told me they’d picked 250 coconuts, and gave me $37.50BZ. Woo hoo! Tom, Selwyn, Ronald, and Wilton are just glad that those trees will be dropping fewer leaves and dried coconuts that would need to be picked up and burned!

The man also asked if I wanted to sell any avocados because our two trees are loaded and just starting to ripen…but I declined that offer since I’m not sharing my avocados, even for money!