“I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts”

We do indeed have lovely coconuts and credit for the title of this blog post goes to Fred Heatherton who wrote that novelty song in 1944 in England.

Our tree is loaded with coconuts:

Two coconuts were on the ground so I picked them up. This is one of them:

I had no idea what to do with them, so I turned to trusty YouTube and found this video made in Costa Rica: How To Pick the Best Ripe Coconut. I decided to practice opening the second green coconut following these instructions. Using our machete very, very carefully I began by hacking off the indicated end. Machetes are really scary to use, to my mind, so I stopped and got a kitchen knife which worked pretty well and was less dangerous. Until I got to the hard inner nut, the green outer shell was easy to cut through and eventually a hole opened up and I could see coconut water. I think I hacked off more than I needed to.

Dropped in a straw and, voila, a refreshing drink!