USVI-On-Line

Ruth...STOP...you're killin' me...

I thought there was alot of chickens on St. John until I went to Virgin Gorda. They are everywhere!

If you look closely you'll see that the restaurant chickens have already had their fingers removed.

In Costa Rica, our friend opened the door to his hotel room, and a cat ran out. Our friend was sharing a room with my SIL's then boyfriend, and she'd been feeding the local cats from the breakfast buffet.

The same friend was apalled by the chickens at Blue Heaven on Key West. He hasn't been to St. John yet - I've been putting that off, lol.

Palmtrees wrote:If you look closely you'll see that the restaurant chickens have already had their fingers removed.

I noticed a bunch of legless frogs too!

alw1977 wrote:Who the hell wrestles a goat? To what end?

It does sound odd doesn't it?

It is hard to describe but the goat jumped up on the table. It was a plastic table and the weight of the goat caused it to tip towards us. As B jumped up, the goat sort of fell into him. B reached up to fend off the falling goat and they just got to wrestling.

I will admit to being rather beach-drinking tipsy at this point in the day. Both Hubs and I started laughing, which pissed B off, which made us laugh even more. Hubs and I thought this was just the funniest thing in the world and had one of those fits where you just can't stop giggling.

Okay, PA Girl, unintentionally wrestling a goat is actually funnier than just plain assaulting one. I personally love goats (it's an odd fascination) and would probably have squealed in delight if one jumped on my table. If that story happened in my presence, I'd probably still be laughing.

Nov-violent protest of goat curry? Baaaaaaad!

Cheers, RickG

RickG, that joke? Baaaaaaad.

Just sayin'

This is an amusing thread. Being a suburban girl myself I really like all the critters on STJ. The chickens etc have never bothered me so long as they don't get too pushy for food.

The only thing that totally and completely creeps me out -- and I mean sends chills down my spine -- is a snake swimming in water.

Thankfully there are no snakes on STJ (gotta love the mongoosedem for that!)

BUT if I ever spotted a sea snake I would probably have a stroke.

Seriously, just thinking about that now makes me want to throw up!!

gymnastika wrote:I thought there was alot of chickens on St. John until I went to Virgin Gorda. They are everywhere!

Speaking of island critters and VG, I've told this story previously here re our 06 trip there...

Last full day. A little island exploring includes Mahoe Bay, Nail Bay, and Savannah Bay.

We work our way down to beach at Savannah Bay beach and local kids were romping on beach while adults set up canopy and much picnic fixins nearby. Suddenly we hear a couple of goats bleating like crazy and can see through the bushes that they are being tied up.

My wife gets this really weird look on her face and then she urgently implores me to leave RIGHT NOW. It takes a moment or two, but then I realize what she might be thinking so we hightail it out of there – not a time for debate or reasoning with a pessimistic animal lover.

MY first thought was that it is a huge stretch to think that those goats might be more than just unwanted guests at that picnic – I think that they just come looking for handouts and they were being restrained so they aren’t pestering everyone and stealing food. But at the time, I decided it was another one of those times when I’d rather be happy than right (in fact, that’s a choice us men often find we must make!)

When we got back I posted a “goats at the Sunday Picnic” question on a BVI board with this disclaimer “Please excuse any cultural ignorance – don’t want to insult anybody and hope I haven’t by asking. What do we know? We’re from New Jersey! Plenty of things happen here that others would find much more upsetting…”

Someone who lives on VG responded: “They very well may have been tied up to prevent them from eating the people's picnic! Goats are a common sight on Savannah Bay, as well as chickens, and can be PESTS if you have food with you! It is unlikely that they were being killed for the picnic. If they were going to have goat water or stewed goat, the goats would have been killed elsewhere and the meat prepared before coming to the beach. However, many of the goats that you see in the islands are indeed being raised for food, not as pets. The goats you saw were not on the menu at their picnic, they just didn't want them to eat their picnic!”

JMQ,

I wish I could see the expression on your wife's face when she saw what was going on! I would have high-tailed it too, with the jeep hitting all the bushes along the way out of there!

One of the things I am looking for is interaction with the tamer wild life while I am there. Sometimes it gets a bit scary though. In the past, we always have gone in Aug/Sep, so most of the time we really have the beaches to ourselves.....which also means the wild life (if any) only have us to look for food from. Don’t mind the chickens too much. Goats haven’t been a problem for us….(although the wrestling with one sounds hilarious....and while I don’t want to do it, I would love to have been sitting nearby to see it!). Gets scary to see three or four donkeys coming over to investigate what your doing......generally ends up with my wife in the car yelling at me to get another picture from the other side of the animals so that the car is in the picture too!

Rain or shine, the roosters below us would crow at the crack of dawn. Having grown up in the country, it was sorta nice. But they didn't stop. All day long those noisy rosters strutted their stuff. They didn't shut the hell up until the sun went down!

The only "wild" animals I am really leery of are dogs. While a nice golden retriever or mutt is right up my alley, some rangy, hungry-eyed dog is a real threat to me. I don't see too many roaming St. John, which is a good thing. Cats, chickens, mongeese, donkeys, goats, cows... bring 'em on.