Carobs!

There's a massive tree overhanging one corner of our garden which fascinates me. It took us a couple of years to work out why on earth the old lady who owns the tree (and quite a few others on the land around) would suddenly appear and start walloping the branches with the longest pole you've ever seen. It dawned on us eventually that she and her friend were trying to make these strange brown pods fall so they could be collected and put into sacks.

It turned out to be a carob tree, know locally as an "alfarrobeira" (pronounced al-fuh-roe-bay-ruh) and the pods are "alfarrobas" (al-fuh-roe-bush) or carobs, also known as locust beans. It is used as animal feed; made into flour; as a chocolate substitute and a lot more besides as far as I can tell. There was some very good information on it at a fair last year but I can't for the life of me find a link to the site (or remember the name of it). I've found a link to some information on Wikipedia if anybody's interested.

Anyway, this lovely old tree - and nobody seems to know just how old she is - creaks and groans and large branches occasionally drop off but she's lovely to listen to! I know I'm considered fairly lala by some of my friends but this old girl (the tree, not me) makes the most amazing noise when the wind rushes down the valley and gets tangled up in her branches. The noise is incredible sometimes but the old girl takes it full on and stands there defiantly. I used to sit in her shade sometimes but since an enormous branch fell off into our garden I'm a bit wary! This year we were lucky enough to be there for a couple of months and I took pics of the pods changing as they ripened. They should be falling now in August - pity I'm not there. I enjoyed helping the old lady collect them last year even though my back was killing me at the end of it and I only helped for an hour or so! She must be a very fit lady as she does it day in, day out for hours on end! You wouldn't know it to look at her which just proves looks can be deceiving sometimes.

The last pic is a carob bean, honest, despite what you may think it looks like :-)