There are so many words to learn, understand and discover as well as some interesting new phrases that have cropped up over the years.
Welcome to Dictionary Corner
For example:What on earth does Hump Day mean?
I guess a Camel would be happy to celebrate Hump Day on any day of the week!
Does it mean – Grab your camels by the hump? Is Quasimodo in town and which day? What is going on with this hump? I see this phrase on forums and it seems to pop up more and more in general chats!
Hump Day actually refers to the middle of the week, and specifically, Wednesday. It has become a popular phrase, implying that you have to get “over the hump” before you can anticipate the weekend.
So next time it’s the middle of the week, see if you can drop the phrase somewhere in the conversation and see what reaction you get. At least if they look at you with a puzzled face, you can wow them with your new found knowledge or just direct them here to get the lowdown 🙂
To help you get the most of your Hump Day why not check out my regular Wisdom Wednesday articles – the posts that speak for themselves.
Mango is the “King of Fruits” and definitely brings a taste of the exotic to the table.
It’s not the easiest fruit to prepare, being so juicy it tends to slip and jump out of your hands. There is a better way.
I will show you how to prepare a mango with the minimum of fuss and mess. This method will help you extract the most flesh from your ready to eat ripe mango and keep the juice from escaping all over you and the kitchen!
Follow these easy steps and you’ll look like a professional mango connoisseur.
Wash your Mango
Leave the skin intact
Hold the Mango so the pointed lower part of the mango is facing you and the top pointed upper part is facing away from you
With a sharp knife slice the right hand side of the mango.
Repeat on the other side. You should now have three separate bits of mango. Set the middle core section aside for now but do not discard.
With the same sharp knife, score vertically across the flesh of one segment, but do not cut through the skin.
Using the same segment, score horizontally across the flesh. Again, do not cut through the skin.
Turn the mango over so the skin is facing you and turn the mango inside out – pushing with all your fingers (see image below)
You should now have something that looks like this
Follow my steps to easily prepare your mango
Using your knife, cut off the raised segments into a bowl. Discard skin.
Repeat above on the second half of mango segment
To remove the flesh from the core
Using your knife, slice either side of the main core so you have two thin strips. Carefully remove the skin from these strips and chop into chunks.
If you wander your local neighborhood what kind of trees do you have?
Here are a selection of my local neighborhood trees and a lot of them are fruit trees 🙂 with a few mystery trees thrown in – do you know what they are?
Papaya Trees
Such a thin sparse tree…but it still produces fruit
How can such a small thin looking tree still produce fruit? Where there is a will, there is a way!
A big thank you to Beatriz of gardeningB.com for pointing me in the right direction – these are actually Papayas not Mango as I incorrectly identified. See, I need all the help I can get 🙂
However, I’m going to keep this fun Mango fact here 😉 because it’s so interesting.
Mango Mystery – Solved Mangos are distantly related to a few plants that you’d probably never guess: the cashew and pistachio.
Fig Trees
You can see why Adam and Eve used Fig Leaves to cover themselves – they’re huge!
A vibrant, green fig tree
Did You Know? Fossil records date figs back to between 9400-9200 B.C.
Avocado
They are not my favorite fruit
They are extremely popular and nice as Guacamole
Fun Avocado Fact Avocados will not ripen on the tree. They must be picked from the tree to initiate ripening. The leaves supply a substance that prevents ripening. The best way to store avocados is to leave them on the tree; they will store for 7 months or more when left on the tree.
Now it’s your turn..
I need some help identifying what the following trees/fruit are? Any clues?
Really not sure what kind of tree this is?
Do You Know What This Is? Is this also a Fig?
and then of course there was this tree…
Large and nicely displayed in oversized plant pots but do you know what it is?
and this was underneath it…a good clue and useful to help identify it. Does this help?
Can you eat this? Looks like something you would dry and put out at Christmas time.
If you can solve the mystery, please leave a comment below.
I’ll leave you with one last photo – a collection of mini balls that were under a palm tree. They’re definitely the fruit/seed from the palm tree (usually green when still attached) but to me they look like eyeballs. I guess Hallowe’en must be on my mind, even though it’s a couple of months away, and the colors reminded me of Fall/Autumn.
Not really eyeballs but it was such a funny collection I just had to snap a picture.
I’m not a big medication user, in fact I can barely swallow what I guess most human beings would consider regular sized pain relievers. This is not a new phenomenon for me. I’ve always had trouble and would have to use the dispersible painkillers when I was younger or suffer in silence.
However, if like me you have trouble swallowing pills you may be interested in a few different options that can help you feel better quicker and without all the hassle of the ‘choke factor’ and the gallon of water you have to swallow. Compare that scenario to other people who barely swallow a teaspoonful of water, if any at all – no-one likes a smarty pants 😉
You may even be that person so congratulations or if not I can sympathize and I’m sure you know the kind of person I’m talking about. They effortlessly look at you without moving their head an inch as well as looking like they are barely swallowing – is that you – how do you do that?
It’s certainly not me. I end up doing a special balancing act in my mouth and then attempt to encase the pill in a bubble of water which I hope manages to go down my throat. What normally happens is I swallow the water and the pill stays firmly in place in my mouth melting into a gooey horrible tasting mess. If I’m really lucky it will stay perfectly in shape to give me another chance…or I give up.
Why do we say it’s the size of a Horse Pill?
It is certainly not my imagination…pills really have increased in size. When you are faced with a ‘horse-pill’ the size of a small cocktail sausage and that horrible feeling of it stuck in the back of your throat going nowhere fast…what can you do to get some relief?
First of all get yourself a pill crusher. There are many different sorts on the market. It’s easy to pop into your bag so that you can crush your pills on the go should you need to. Adding the powder to a flavored drink or apple sauce makes the whole experience much more pleasant.
Not all pills can be crushed so check with your Doctor or Pharmacist for advice or alternatives.
WordPress have just released version 4.3, also known as “Billie”.
One of the new functions of this release, which I’ve already implemented, is the Site Icons feature.
Site icons represent your site in browser tabs, bookmark menus, and on the home screen of mobile devices. Add your unique site icon in the customizer; it will even stay in place when you switch themes. Make your whole site reflect your brand.
So if you are looking at this post (or anything on my website) whilst on your computer or laptop you should now see a mini banana just left of the travellingbanana.com url in the browser.
Can you see it?
If you are on your mobile device such as an iPad or iPhone you can add me to your homescreen using the Add to Homescreen feature.
You will now have a funky smiling banana as an icon. It should look something like this:-
Now you can have a useful visual identification to help you find one of your favorite websites 🙂 and a convenient link on your mobile device.
If you are visiting from an Android device, let me know the options you have and I will add those instructions here too?
You can find out more about this new WordPress release here
Whilst visiting Matheson Hammock State Park, three cheeky Raccoons wandered by to investigate some nearby trash cans.
Raccoons possess amazing dexterity that allows them to open doors, jars, bottles and latches. They are also great climbers, which allows them to better access food and shelter.
Three Raccoons out for a stroll in Matheson Hammock Park, FL
Fun Raccoon Facts
The raccoon’s scientific name, Procyon lotor, means “washer dog” although it is a closer relative to the bear family.
On the mammal IQ scale raccoons rank higher than cats and just below monkeys.
The raccoon has the ability to rotate their hind feet a full 180 degrees to allow for their ability to climb down from trees head first.
The word raccoon, derived from the Algonquin Indian word “arakun” means “he scratches with hands”.
The baby raccoon’s eyes do not open until 20 days or so after birth. It won’t have rings on its tail, or a mask around its eyes, until it’s older.
Activity: Nocturnal in nature, raccoons are mostly active at night. They are most active in spring, summer and fall, and will sleep in their dens for most of the winter.
Social Interaction: Raccoons are independent after 12 – 14 months of age. Adults live in loose knit communities of 4 – 5 raccoons for better protection against predators.
Communication: Raccoons communicate with each other using over 200 different sounds and 12 – 15 different calls.
Pelicans fly through the air, dive into the ocean but sometimes they just want to sit and be.
They are very chilled out birds but it was a triumph for me to capture these images without disturbing their rest.
A pelican having a rest by the Miami Beach Marina
Dixon Lanier Merritt (1879–1972) was an American poet and humorist. He was a newspaper editor for the Tennessean, Nashville’s morning paper, and President of the American Press Humorists Association. He penned this well-known limerick in 1910.
A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican,
He can take in his beak
Enough food for a week
But I’m damned if I see how the helican!
or:
A funny old bird is a pelican.
His beak can hold more than his belican.
Food for a week
He can hold in his beak,
But I don’t know how the helican.
The limerick was inspired by a post card sent to him by a female reader of his newspaper column who was visiting Florida beaches. It is often misattributed to Ogden Nash and is widely misquoted as demonstrated above. It is quoted in a number of scholarly works on ornithology, including “Manual of Ornithology: Avian Structure and Function,” by Noble S. Proctor and Patrick J. Lynch, and several others.
