Jenny's Farm

At: Jenny's farm

Jenny, a woman who went to live in Grenada, is mostly known by cruisers for her excellent weekly farmer’s markets. Once in a while, she holds an open farm day, where everyone who’s interested can visit her farm in the mountains.

Almost every cruiser knows Jenny and she’s very well liked. The turnout was huge. I estimate about 60-80 people came over with buses to visit her house of wonders.

Jenny lives in a colonial-style open house overlooking the ocean. A very narrow old road takes you there. Quite an adventurous trip in the ancient Toyota bus, whose last oil change was somewhere in the early ‘70s. Negotiating hairpin turns involved parts of the bus perilously overhanging the ravines. But we made it. The driver parked the bus on a 45º slope that reminded me of my monohull days.

Like most houses in Grenada, this one is also built on stilts. Under the house live several ducks, chickens, donkeys and a huge pig name Priscilla, Queen of the Jungle. Jenny also cares a lot for stray dogs. At least 15 live in and around the house. A charity is set up to sterilize them as to not exacerbate the stray dog problem on the island.

The house has no windows, only shutters, so the wildlife is also welcomed inside. The bedroom houses several bats during the day. At night, they fly out. Each bat eats about 600 mosquitoes per hour. Beats DEET spray.

Having a picnic on the lawn with donkeys and dogs roaming around poses its own challenges. One of the donkeys became very interested in our salad. In the end, Jenny had to lure them back to their pen.

After the picnic, we took a 40 minute walk to a nearby dam. The views were spectacular and the water, while murky, was a revitalizing cool treat at the end of the long uphill walk.

We walked back and arrived at the house just about when the buses were getting ready to leave. We’re so used to taking our time for everything we do alone, that everything we do in group seems too fast.