THINK DOMINICA! I think I posted this travelogue-ish thing here before... We were only on Dominica for about a year but even if we had been there a lifetime, I do not think we would have seen all the wondrous and beautiful sites that are the island! Morning starts when the sun pops up over the ocean at 6:00 AM and as the morning goes on you watch over the mountains (volcanos) as the mist accumulates and clouds form and it dumps rain on you from about 2:00 to 4:00 PM. Everyday. There are no words to describe the beauty of the rainforests. It is hot and very humid but surprisingly not oppressive to climb through the undergrowth. Perhaps the excitement and the adrenaline kicking in? Hummingbirds abound. Everywhere. The Sisserou parrot, the nation's pride, is a majestic bird. They are THE MOST protected of Dominica's natural wonders. If one of a bonded pair of the parrots dies, the mate will cease to eat and soon will also die. The zoo there finds on occasion a lone bird mourning over a lost mate and capture it and try to feed them and get them to recover and find new mates. I saw one such male at the zoo but none in the wild. Go to the open air market (don't stand under a coconut palm) on Saturday and take your pick of ferns (I have no clue what they were), orchids, flowering this and flowering that. Most times the seller is not aware of the identity of what was being sold. There was a Rasta we befriended and he would save "plants of curiosity" for me. (Legal.All legal!) Plants generally will cost you up to $5.00 EC. You want to but a pig's tail for soup or a cow T-bone steak all the same price per pound...$2.50 EC. That is roughly $1.00 US. Go early for your shopping (6:30 - 7:00 AM) before the flies set in and on your soon to be groceries. Visit the old Brit. fort there and you can readily find cannon balls from early battles. Beaches near Portsmouth are black from the volcano. Storms bring up squid, sponges, sometimes fish on the beach. Go for a walk early (5:30-ish AM) and rescue these guys and toss them back into the sea. (Do not pick up red or orange sponges with bare hands.) Look out over the ocean and you may well catch a glimpse of whales, dolphins, or sea turtles doing their thing. You may even be asked for a dance by a Coconut Crab as he waves his claw at you and does the side step left and side step right. Mountain chicken (little frog legs) is an island delicacy. So is Ting, a carbonated grapefruit juice drink. They have Coke made from cane sugar rather than corn syrup. Delonix regia everywhere. Weedy little things. Wee seedlings sprouting like spring maple seedlings in Ohio. There is no rabies on the island. There are no poisonous snakes...but the snakes they do have are huge! So are their centipedes. I brought one back to the Ohio State University entomology dept. that was 11 inches long. (Yuck!) The people are delightful and will go out of their way like no one else to help you or do anything for you. You step out on the balcony in the morning to be greeted by the absolutely perfect rendition of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik whistled by the neighbor as he has tea on his porch and watches the hummers at his BOP patch. You just haven't lived until you have ridden into town in the back of a pickup truck with three pigs! Night comes at 6:00 PM. Fade to black. Mosquitoes come out then so be sure you have your mosquito netting ready. Cholera and Dengue Fever are common. When dining at a restaurant, a word to the wise, look at the bread or rolls before eating them. There are very tiny ants that quickly move into baked goods such as bread, though the pastries they make seem safer. Electricity can be iffy at times...where ever you are. The favorite saying seems to be: The lights will go on when the generator is working. But who needs lights when you have a sky full of stars and a meteor shower every night. Oh how you wish you had the nerve to lie on the ground and just be drawn into the starscape but there are things creeping about at night: lizards, crabs, snakes, something like fire ants (or maybe they are a type of fire ant) those darn centipedes and don't even mention the spiders. They export bananas and fresh water. Much of the water goes to Antigua. If I could I would go back to Dominican a heartbeat. Oh, if traveling there try to get your prop plane to land at the Canefield Airport. The other airport is a blind approach over the volcano and more than a little scary. That's about it. St. Kitts is OK ... too touristy now though. C3D (Sorry for the poor quality of the photograph of the beach at Portsmouth. It is sadly the best one of our six Polaroid photographs, all now fading away, that have survived the hurricane.)

Nope- just that not everything is a Caribbean red... See the similarity and differences in some of the pod pics though they are different peppers? Tons of pod variations out there for the same pepper. Lots of similar looking varieties too. See them thar dark colored nagas an bhutts-no red? See how some of the 7 pots could pass as nagas? I just read all the experts out there calling any red Chinense a Caribbean red these days. When Red Savinas were the hottest...Any time someone overwatered and overfertilized their savinas and got less hot pods than they liked they were also called caribbean reds. Though some did look like the caribbean red I grew. Besides them is purdy pods Chris growed an sent ta me. Had to show them off again to warm up all youse who live where it's covered in that cold white stuff right now.

Letting you all know that I am obtaining some nice quantities of seed for the Following Assam Bhut Jolokia, Chocolate Bhut Jolokia, Naga Morich, Trinidad 7 Pot, Trinidad Scorpion and the rare Malaysian Habanero Goronong. Contact me through my website and I will send you a word doc that will give you all the information. I am paying quite a bit to get pure seeds but may re-sell to make a little profit. Yes my seed is from overseas and just let me point out that all overseas seed can be confiscated if you do not have the necessary customs paperwork. So I am taking that risk until I get paperwork done which takes forever. Now heres other good news. I will be selling some plants. You do know these plants do not germinate well. So think about plants as an option to seed. Also I have the ability to create plants from cuttings. So as long as I get a few going I will have plants. Now if you are willing to wait I will have fresh chiles too. Then you can just take out your own seeds. So you can buy seeds from fatalii.net or UKchile seeds and take a risk or let me take the risk for you. By the way Reimers seeds resells for UK and I will not charge what they charge. You can contact me at jpdherb@cox.net or go to my site. God Bless! Jim Here is a link that might be useful: Refining Fire Chiles

Letting you all know that I am obtaining some nice quantities of seed for the Following Assam Bhut Jolokia, Chocolate Bhut Jolokia, Naga Morich, Trinidad 7 Pot, Trinidad Scorpion and the rare Malaysian Habanero Goronong. Contact me through my website and I will send you a word doc that will give you all the information. I am paying quite a bit to get pure seeds but may re-sell to make a little profit. Yes my seed is from overseas and just let me point out that all overseas seed can be confiscated if you do not have the necessary customs paperwork. So I am taking that risk until I get paperwork done which takes forever. Now heres other good news. I will be selling some plants. You do know these plants do not germinate well. So think about plants as an option to seed. Also I have the ability to create plants from cuttings. So as long as I get a few going I will have plants. Now if you are willing to wait I will have fresh chiles too. Then you can just take out your own seeds. So you can buy seeds from fatalii.net or UKchile seeds and take a risk or let me take the risk for you. By the way Reimers seeds resells for UK and I will not charge what they charge. You can contact me at jpdherb@cox.net or go to my site. God Bless! Jim Here is a link that might be useful: Refining Fire Chiles