With hundreds of ripe red fruits decorating the jujube trees and the orchard floor below, the Permaculture team has embarked on a mission to produce a year’s supply of jujube jam for The Island School kitchen. Making the jam in such large quantities involves a daylong invasion of the kitchen, which Tiff, Mooch, Sheryl and Rebecca just love! They do seem amused by the vast quantities of jujubes we haul in throughout the week, and offer helpful tips to perfect our jam-making skills.

So as we are sure is the case with most of you, you likely have jujubes lying around your house that you just don’t have a clue what to do with. Well, worry no more! Here you can find a recipe with pictures breaking down just how to make your very own jujube jam, also known as Jujube Butter. With the autumnal flavors of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, the jam closely resembles apple butter and acts as a wonderful addition to breakfast in the morning. Continue reading →

Island School was pleased to welcome several new faculty members over the past week.  Read faculty bios here and make sure to visit the blog regularly to catch new episodes of “Meet the Faculty/Staff,” which is scheduled to premiere next week.

Hey Alums!  We are looking for education and professional information about our alumni. A lot of the information we have is out of date or inaccurate, so if you are in or have graduated from college, please complete this form.  It should only take you a minute or two.

Thanks!

Since the beginning of the year, the Educational Programs team at Cape Eleuthera Institute has had the pleasure of hosting several fantastic college groups, including Carlton University, Williams College and Monmoth University. They focused  on various research areas including marine surveys, flats ecology and farming practices on Eleuthera.

We have also had three high school groups visit.

The Maine School of Science and Mathematics from chilly northern Maine had a two week stay, focused intensely on lionfish and lemon shark research, with some forays into marine ecology, the mangroves and filleting and cooking delicious tilapia. The students and chaperones had a blast, and got to brush up on their research, analysis and presentation skills.  We eventually managed to exhaust the group with a celebratory trip to Lighthouse beach on the last day of their visit, after two weeks of intense physical and mental activity. Continue reading →

By: Marie Tarnowski

The aquaculture team at CEI has been trying to successfully breed sharknose gobies for over a year.  On January 31st, we had our first clutch of eggs hatch!  After adjusting their diet the broodstock pair have begun to spawn every 2 weeks.  After the eggs are laid on the inside of a piece of PVC tubing, the male sharknose goby protects the nest for about a week.  The eggs then hatch and are larvae for 45 days.  Each clutch of eggs contains around 200 eggs and we hope to successfully rear 30 per clutch. Continue reading →

With six new kids in the goat pen, ducklings on their way, and new seeds planted in the shade house, the CEI farm has been bustling with activity since the start of the New Year. On Sunday, January 9^th Sunday and Eli were born (see picture below), followed a week later by Bonnie and Flapjack. This past Monday, January 17^th Sonny became a mother as well, welcoming Moon and Shadow into the CEI goat family. With the increase in herd size from four to ten in a matter of eight days, there has been a lot of hype about the goats at the farm. They are now happily nursing and even the youngest and smallest of the kids has begun nibbling on the green leafy stuff their mothers prefer. How fast they grow!

The female ducks are sending a steady supply of eggs to the kitchen, and two are expecting ducklings in the coming weeks. Having scavenged through theshade house gardens, the male ducks are now contained in a pen of their own to protect future string bean plants. With the help of students from visiting programs, two new vertical gardens have been installed and are now lined with lettuce, grown in preparation for the upcoming Island School spring semester.

Papaya, passion fruit and noni fruits are all ripening in the orchard, and the jujubes are dropping from their tree’s thorny branches at an astonishing rate. Daily harvests last week yielded over 15 gallons of these little red fruits, which were then turned into a delicious Juju jam- a wonderful addition to breakfast each morning. Plans are now in the works to make a Jujube pie…

As we roll out of January and into February, new crops will be planted and old ones transplanted to refurbish and redesign the farm. Within a few weeks we should expect to see tomato, sorrel greens, basil, stevia, romaine lettuce, marigolds, dill and more all happily planted and growing strong.

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This has been a crazy winter in the US with (too much) snow and freezing temperatures.  Unfortunately these storms forced us to cancel our Connecticut reception and reschedule our Lawrenceville reception.  Lawrenceville’s reception has been rescheduled for this Thursday (February 3rd).

A big shout out to everyone in Grand Rapids that trudged through the snow to make it out to the Cusack’s house last night for the reception there.  You Michiganders know how to handle snow!  Thank you especially to all our alumni that came out to share their stories.

Punxatawny Phil proclaimed this morning that we’ll have an early spring this year.  But today on Cape Eleuthera, the weather is calling for mostly sunny and 85 degrees….. so if you want to escape the winter, join us for Deep Creek Middle School’s 10-Year anniversary February 17-20th!

We hope that many of you will be able to join us at our winter receptions this week in New York City (24th), Connecticut (26th), and Lawrenceville (27th).  Find more information here.  It was great catching up with alumni and families at the Cleveland and Boston receptions, and we’re looking forward to more successful events this week!