Hello Everyone. I am sure everyone is getting into The Christmas Spirit! We certainly got into it yesterday when we visited a friend in Punta Gorda and had a Scotch at 10am in the morning! Wow…my head was spinning! Nevertheless, it was a lovely gesture for this time of the year. Anyway, I wanted to squeeze in another plant post before Christmas. We call this The Christmas Bobble Plant:
Christmas Bobble Plant.
Every year, at this time of the year, these plants come up around the house. I remember procuring the seeds from a friend about 10 years ago and I didn’t even plant them. I think they just fell out of my pocket. Since then, they have voluntarily come up for Christmas time. The picture really does not do it justice…if you actually saw them, the balls are about 5cm (2 inches) in diameter; they start off green and slowly turn red. These plants are from the Solanum sp. or Eggplant species. Well, who needs the sparkly lights and bobbles when you have this right at your door-step! Have Fun Everyone!!
Hello, everyone, here’s an update on our surprise lone duckie that came out of a failed incubator project (because the cat sat on the incubator!). Yes, I know, the pitfalls of having animals on a farm!!
Duckie!!
Just to give you a quick background on our duckies, of the mallard type, we had to incubate the eggs because these ducks refused to set. Aha…you might say (if you know anything about the duckie world)…Why didn’t you use the local broody ducks (of the Muscovy type) to set? And, Aha once again…the pitfalls of having animals on the farm…we have a dog with a ferocious appetite for muscovy ducks!
Anyway, to get to the point: we have, in the past, incubated duck eggs with success. However, we found ourselves somewhat at a loss in being duckie parents. We were inexperienced, young and ignorant of The Way of The Duckie Dabble. The result was a bunch of useless duckies waiting for corn mash at the end of each day with no knowledge of eating the good things in life like slugs, caterpillars, ants, creepy crawlies and grass. What a disaster!!
Anyway, we have spent many a day observing The Way of The Duckie Dabble and this is the All New Munchkin & Gnome Classical Duckie Education.
It’s important to keep duckie in a safe, warm environment where he can freely survey the outside world. We used a fish tank with a 100 watt bulb.
Warm Secure Environment.
2. Spend lots and lots of quality time with duckie. At Day 2, Start him on a diet of protein (we used boiled eggs) and lots of chopped greens. Let him splash about in a bowl of water like a duckie.
Splashing Duckie.
3. From Day 3, allow supervised walks so he gets used to pecking at creepy crawlies and eating green things. According to Gnome, it helps to wear yellow wellies so that he thinks you are just one of his kind!
Supervised Duckie Walks.Wear Yellow Wellies.
4. Introduce Duckie to other farm members in a controlled manner:
Meet the Cat.
5. It is of utmost importance in a Duckie Classical Education to introduce other animals (or cultures) into his everyday world as quickly as possible. From Day 7, take Duckie to the Piggie Creche (9am to 5pm) for pre-school education. This will enable fluency in a foreign language at a young age.
It’s that time of the year again. The Christmasy feeling is a bit more down-to earth here in Punta Gorda, Belize. You don’t get the awful (or perhaps nostalgic for some) ’80’s Festive songs blaring out of shops…you know what I mean: “Last Christmas,” and “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” and all that. I heard them at Brodie’s (in the big city) last week and it finally clicked that it was Christmas time again. Not here, it’s pure down here with none of that manufactured, marketed stuff around. What Bliss! Anyway, let’s talk about plants because that’s what I like talking about.
About a month ago, a friend give us some seeds from Guatemala and they are coming up.
These are Santol; Sandoricum koetjape. This is a Southeast Asian fruit that looks a bit peachy and tastes a bit peachy…according to Wiki…not with these words of course…they were a bit more eloquent.
Santol Seedlings.
These are Langsat; Lansium parasiticum. Another Southeast Asian fruit that looks a bit like a lychee but tastes like grapefruit/grape. I never believe these taste quantifying reports by the way. They might as-well say that they taste like chicken. I’m going to wait until I get the fruit bearing in 5 years and see if it’s grapefruit or grape or something else!!
Langsat Seedlings.
These ones are from a different friend and very, very much appreciated too!
Oooooh Durian; if you have been in Asia, you would have smelt the lovely aroma of durian. We managed to sprout 3 out of 4 of these seeds. So excited because these are “The King of Fruit” in Asia. We’ve got to wait 5 to 10 years for the fruit!!
Durian Seeds.
Galangal root; this is an Indonesian rhizome from the Ginger Family. It has more of a camphor-like taste. Great for teas and curries.
Our Christmas delivery will be on Wednesday the 21st of December. For anyone living in Punta Gorda, orders will be hand-delivered by Munchkin Fairy & Gnome Fairy. For the rest of Belize, goods will be sent by Tropic Air.
Chocolate Artisan Soaps.
Everything is hand-made by Munchkin & Gnome, with care, love and attention on our Farm. We’ve got all sorts of lovely stuff including chocolate and medicinal soaps, massage oils, chocolate lip balms and lots more. You can either order through the website or email us with your order on info@casamascia.com.
You may have wondered if Panda was still around. Yes he is…he’s just waiting for the right conjunction of stars to write something. Yes, he’s a bit like that. Anyway, he’s trying to learn to live on a farm and to find a practical way to live. We are giving him some guidance and occasionally a kick up the backside to move him along.
This is because, when we started, we made so many mistakes and now we feel that with a few pointers in the right places, it would not have taken us so long to set things up. On hindsight, I would advise anyone wanting to live a self-sustainable farming life-style to start with the following things: power, water, security and access. Now I know it sounds so obvious but it wasn’t obvious to us as silly wannabee farmers.
We totally messed up, at the beginning and didn’t even consider these most important concepts. Instead, we bought a billy goat (a very rude one at that) without fencing the property and ended up tying him up on our veranda. Those were the days when we sat down to have a cup of tea and Horatio (the goat) would attempt to clobber Gnome whilst in the act of obscene gesticulations. Gnome would clobber him back and this went on for a while until we realised our priorities in setting up a decent farm life.
So, Panda does not need to learn our goat lesson. Since he has power and water, we have moved him swiftly onto “security.” This involves chopping the front fence line and planting pandanus plants as a natural barrier. Anyway, we went to have a look at Panda’s efforts today. We noticed a few problems; his fence-line, that he has chopped, is all wiggly and not in a straight line. He also hasn’t chopped enough width to allow the pandanus to grow and he did not take into consideration that part of the land, outside of the fence-line, is public right of way. His line weaves in and out in a meandering kinda way.
Bushy Fence Line.
Panda has to re-visit this chore and cut a straight line within the land and chop at least 2 metres wide to allow the fence-line plants to grow. That is no mean feat! Gnome told him that there was a lesson to be learned in this: prior to this, we advised Panda not to hire help for this particular job. We said this because we needed him to realise what chopping with a machete really meant; we needed him to do some real work. Panda may choose now to hire a worker for this job but he will do this with respect and gratitude. All too often, we meet many people who hire, in a nonchalant way, stating that their main reason is to “help the locals.” We would like to urge Panda to have a less superior attitude and adopt a more balanced, symbiotic attitude with hired workers. I think he got the lesson.
We have a Baby!! Yes, against all odds we have a baby duckie! We haven’t had much luck with the duckie breeding program because of gender issues (this is true, by the way, the male duck paired up with a male goose and wouldn’t have anything to do with the female ducks). Anyway, we have a new drake on the block that is satisfying the harem of ducks. However, none of the ducks wanted to set so Gnome made an incubator.
We put 12 eggs in the incubator (Gnome-rigged, of course with temperature control) last month and eagerly waited. Gnome candled them at the beginning and all of them seemed to be viable. Towards the end of the incubation period (takes 28 days to hatch), disaster struck when we realised that the cat had been jumping on top of the incubator because it was such a comfy warm spot, causing the temperature to fluctuate, subsequently spoiling the eggs. We were so disappointed and gave up on the project as an “act of cat.” However, there was one egg we had put in 5 days later than the rest which was due to hatch today…we woke up this morning to:
“…peep….peep…peep.”
Yes, we have one lone duckie! Awwwhhhh….soooooo cute….
New Baby Duckie!
Another baby picture:
Duckie!!
We have set up an emergency brooding area in a fish tank with a 100 watt lamp to keep it warm. He’s just had his first feed and seems to be doing okay! A bit lonely but we are keeping it company…
Every morning, one of the first things that I do is to harvest food for the day and usually just enough for the day so it stays fresh…no need to be shoving anything in the fridge. Actually we only have a tiny fridge for pharmaceuticals…no veggies, fruit and condiments allowed! Morning harvest:
Farm Harvest.
The leafy greens are chaya and to the front are some carambola (starfruit). The round yellow fruit, at the back are sour peach. The banana leaf has some wild mushroom (Schiziphylum commune). So, Gnome asked me:
Well, we had a town day today (Punta Gorda) to actually escape from the heat. That doesn’t make sense because it was still hot in town…but at least we weren’t mowing the grass, chopping coconuts down and doing our usual heavy farm stuff. It feels like a second dry season right now and as I am writing this I realise that most of our overseas readers are probably experiencing winter weather right now. Our winters can get down to a chilly 18C (64F) but not so this time…it feels like 38C!
Anyway, we had our usual relaxing stop over at the PG sea for a cuppa. Ahhhh…sometimes it’s just nice to take the day off…when you live on a farm, the work is never ever done…
Horlicks By The Sea.
We had Horlicks this time. Thank-you British Belize Foods for giving us a bit of British!
Hello Munchkin here and I am still munching through the edible ornamentals. This one is Pereskia aculeata also known as Barbados Gooseberry. In a specific area of Brazil, Minas Gerais, it is known as ora-pro-nobis; here, the plant is cultivated for its edible leaves. The leafy green is high in vitamins, minerals and amino acids. Because of its high nutritional value, there has been research into using the dried leaf in bread and sausage making. I like to put this in our miso soup.
Ora Pro Nobis Leaves.
The fruit is round, orange in colour and has the taste and consistency of a gooseberry. It looks like an orange gooseberry actually!
More Barbados Gooseberry.Barbados Gooseberry.
You can eat them as they are or use them in jams and preserves. They have a fruity tartness. Oh, but last but not least, the flowers are really pretty on this cactus:
Barbados Gooseberry Flower.Pereskia aculeata. Flowers and Fruit.
Anyone interested in buying a plant? Let me know and I will bag some in the new year. Cheers!!
