All posts by Munchkin

Amusing, Belize, Farming

Still Going!!

I can’t believe it has been ten days since I last wrote.  The days have flown by and we have taken advantage of the very dry spell…not a single drop of rain since last night’s single (literally!) drop of rain.  Gnome had to stop mowing  for a few days because of carpal tunnel but he seems okay now with it.  He has been chopping trees down to make charcoal; one tree fills up a 55 gallon drum about 2 to 3 times over, stuffed very full.  The charcoal is being stored for colder days.

Making Charcoal.

I had a slight mishap with my right middle finger when a concrete block accidentally banged down on the tip.  Ahhhhh….it was so painful (I am not good with pain and the worse patient ever).  I didn’t even bother Gnome (because he was too busy) and sorted it out myself.  I treated the initial inflammation and then came back out of the house with a huge bandage wrapped around my finger and wrist and kept on going.  What a brave Munchkin!!  I did not realise how important the tip of a middle finger was until I had difficulty opening bucket lids, washing dishes properly with a scrubber, even lighting the stove and so many other activities of daily living.  Anyway, it’s all fine now and the injury has healed.

Little Goosie is about 5 weeks old and her weight is going up everyday; she is more than 2 lbs (1kg) in weight.  I estimate that her weight will be 5lbs once she gets to 12 weeks.  That is not too much considering that if you intend to feed up a green goose (equivalent of broiler) your aim is to get them up to 10lbs in 12 weeks.

This is an old picture: Goosie is probably four times bigger now:

Goosie.

No more little goosies yet and the sneaky goosies have switched all their old nesting spots so we can’t find any-more eggs right now.

Secret Goose Nest.

We have two very broody females, sitting in nests (yes they finally figured out that the big square structures with soft natural furnishings were nests).

Nesting Boxes.

However, we don’t trust their haphazard setting abilities so they are sitting on a bunch of rocks.  We have tried de-brooding them a number of times by sticking them in the duckie coop…somehow they manage to get back out (Houdini Goosies) and plonk themselves back on their nest of rocks.

Anyway the farm is looking great with the new hair-cut.  Gnome will be getting onto the coconut area soon.  We will keep on going and have a natural break with the Iguana rains…

Dear Ms Iguana, I hope the rains come soon so that you can lay your eggs but please don’t lay them on our farm because we don’t have enough succulent greens to feed your little blighters!!

Iguana.
Amusing, Belize, Farming

I Don’t Recognise This Place!!

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We have naturally gone crepuscular this year; I think it’s partly because the first cry from the geese is about 4.30 am.  So, 4.30am has become our natural waking time.  We like to talk and have a cup of tea (or two) in the morning, plan our day and then we are out on the farm early.  Look at what’s happening!!  I don’t recognise the place…the bush has come down and we can actually see all around us!!  Ha-Ha!!

There’s Gnome charging ahead and disappearing into the bushes:

Clearing Away.

I guess I am taking pictures just for our benefit because the reader is probably none the wiser.  But you have to realise that we were practically living in bush for the last 6 months because we have had mass machinery break-down.  So, let me indulge myself with a few more pictures:

Oooooh:

Another section cleared.

Ahhhhh:

Cleared Pond.

We even found a very spiny bamboo that has grown up (into an adult size):

Spiny Bamboo.

We have re-claimed fruit trees too:

Clearing.

Also, Gnome is busy with other projects.  He woke up the other day and said:

“That’s it!!  That’s it!!  Algae is the answer to everything!!”

He went on about a super big protein source, survival food and natural solar panels.  He said quite a lot and then said he wanted to cultivate algae; and, so he did:

Culturing Algae.

Well, this is what I said:

“Well okay, you can breed your algae in your spare time…but first clean the farm up!”

(That is the Chinese in me coming out which he tells me is endearing at times).

So, more pictures of cleared up farm…

The Pond Area.

Look, I can actually walk about:

Farm Cleared.
Amusing, Belize, Farming

Cleaning Up!!

Gnome is boldly going where no Gnome has gone before (well, he has been there before but it was a very, very long time ago).  He is re-claiming the farm territory and expanding into the unknown.  Phew…we have never, ever been able to clear up the farm in one go so here’s hoping that all goes well this time!

So, more silly tales from Munchkin and Gnome: Grey goosie (aka  April Jones of the Jonesey sisters…yes, you have to keep up with our goosie soap opera!) went missing a few days ago.  We searched high and low for her but to no avail since it was still very bushy at that time.  We figured that she was laying eggs in the back of beyond (somewhere!) and was most likely sitting on a clutch of eggs.  Anyway, Gnome stumbled across her in some dense bush yesterday…she was hissing and carrying on and was none too pleased with the disturbance of noisy machinery and grass flying every-where.

Grey Goosie.

So, Gnome called me over and asked what we should do.  This is what we ended up doing: we mowed around her and left her a little island of dense bush!!  I think that we love our goosies too much and are catering to their whims…don’t you think?  This is not how you run a farm!!

Anyway, at the beginning of the year we had decided to put out nesting boxes for the geese.  There are many of these washing machine coverings filled up with nesting material and smooth rocks scattered around the farm designed to entice the discerning, broody goose.  Any takers??  Of course not…the goosies didn’t come to our “lay your eggs in our lovely nesting boxes made out of white goods” meeting.  They would much rather go au naturel…

Nesting Boxes.

Oh well, that’s the usual kinda stuff that happens on the farm.  Oh and we caught this funny looking possum which was the size of a rat.  Gnome’s immediate response was that it wasn’t big enough to eat!  I think that the bigger variety that we caught first time round was a Virginia Opossum (the ones that can “play dead”).  This scary looking thing is a Grey Four-Eyed Possum.  Anyway, since we raged war against the possums they seem to have vacated the area quick smart.  No more possums to be found…that’s a good thing!

Possum.
Belize, Farming

Goosies, Duckies and Possums.

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With Goosies, Duckies and Possums we are being kept busy; on top of all that, Gnome has mowed all the grass to the pond area.  It’s really helpful because we (the animals and I can move about more)!!  Anyway, little big goosie was getting a tad too big for the house creche so we had to put her outside; in the daytime she grazes on perennial peanut under a wire cage and at night, we place her in  a possum trap( by herself) with a water dish, plenty of doggy biscuits and a bunch of grass.  On the first night she kept on calling for us (we are Mum and Dad to her) so we went downstairs to try to calm her down.  As soon as she saw our familiar wellies (because at her height all that she sees are two pairs of walking wellies) she immediately started her happy noise.  That was when I realised that if I stuck a pair of wellies outside her cage she would feel safe…and it worked!  We have a happy goosie…Goosie ‘n” Boots!!

Goosie with Wellie Boots.

Little duckie is getting bigger and still in the house creche…which is essentially just  a big glass fish tank.  She is still small enough to handle but I anticipate that she will be going out soon in a weeks time.  Every night we spend two hours quality time with duckie…

Duckie.

Oh yes the possums.  I spent three days making my special Bengali curry…the sauce is made of twenty medium onions very, very thinly sliced (by yours truly) with ginger, cardamom, cumin seed, yellow ginger, star anise, cinnamon and little bird peppers.  The meat was soaked in brine for 24 hours, simmered in curry for 8 hours and left over-night for all flavours to do their thing.  Phew, it was a lot of work but totally worth it.  We had it with sliced green jackfruit.  Very Good!!

Possum Curry.
Amusing, Belize, Farming

Munchkin & Gnome Crèche!

Hey everyone!!  We don’t have a guinea pig creche any-more for our young’uns  so Munchkin and Gnome are running a temporary creche in the house (as-well as doing a multitude of things including cleaning up the farm, cooking up possum, making stuff to sell and of course, doctoring).  Since we have to baby-sit them we have spent a lot more time with new goosie and duckie.  Look at goosie…she likes to sit at the table with us; cuteness goes a long way!!

Goosie.

Duckie likes to sit in front of my computer monitor and keep me company.  Here is duckie in our temporary crèche facilities watching a film with me:

Duckie.

There is a huge size difference between the two of them; Goosie-zilla is a monster next to the little one…we have to watch her carefully so that she does not trample over the little one…she’s a bit of a cute clutz.

Goosie vs Duckie.

Sometimes we have to hid the duckie in a box so that she can stay safe:

Duckie in Box.

It’s all fun (mostly) but the tremendous amount of poop does get in the way of the fun.  They will have to go outside soon and meet the rest of the gang.  There are no more new ones since the possums have stolen all our eggs…hopefully with possum control, we can get a few more…

Belize, Farming

Catching Up!

It’s all go and we have started cleaning up the farm…the grass is down around the yard and Gnome is moving out to re-claim the land.  The weather is hot and dry (mostly) so it is perfect for getting out.  Having said that, there is a big rain this morning and we are waiting for it to stop (Why Oh Why Oh Why!!).

The farm is producing and this year we have three jackfruit trees with fruit; this one is loaded:

Jackfruit.

Gnome says that we should harvest some of these green so that we can have bigger mature fruit.  Preparing green jackfruit is quite messy because there is so much gummy latex.  Anyway, I will still do it since it is food after-all.

I had to sneak this one in.  I made bao!!  Sometimes I surprise even myself; I didn’t realise that my brain was stuffed full of so many recipes learnt passively from helping my mum out in the kitchen as a kid.  I am more Chinese than I actually think…Ha-Ha!!  Sometimes I am Scottish when I feel like it…well, when I make haggis.

Bao

Anyway, moving swiftly onto farm pictures.  These are a harvest of flying yam.  These grow as a vine so you don’t have to dig around in the dirt.  I am playing around with taking pictures as if they are for coffee-table books…can’t seem to get the sepia look that Panda does. 🙂

Air Potatoes.

More Coffee-table attempts:

Tomatillo
Tomatillo
Tomatillo

Hope the rain stops.  We are “sorting out” the o(possums) today because they are looking so sorry for themselves.  I will keep you posted.

Belize, Farming

Gotcha!!

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If anyone has been following our posts, they will know that we were absolutely devastated over Christmas because we lost our whole guinea pig community to pesky possums.  They were practically wiped out over-night; not a single piggie was left; some were eaten up and the rest were just killed.  Anyway, the story continued with Gnome trying the bait the possum(s) with a bucket of food at night which involved sitting in the dark with a pellet gun.  Well, that didn’t work and all we caught was our cat rummaging about in the bucket looking for a midnight snack.

Oh, but look what we have here: Gotcha!!  We’ve got the little blighter…had to trap it in the end.

Possum.

And you won’t believe it!!  We found a shrubby, dense area scattered with egg shells (yes, we have lost a whole tonne of goose and duck eggs to them!) so we decided to put a trap out every night and we have caught a possum every time.  We have three in total and can’t catch any-more because we have run out of traps.  Now, I am feeding the three possums with rice for a week, to clean them out in preparation for possum curry at the weekend.  I have mixed feelings about having to dispatch these little blighters (they kinda look cute in a possum kinda way) but I realise that they have  devastated our farm and we do need to get rid of them. 🙂

Belize, Farming, Plants

Hello Again!!

I just realised that I have not written for ages!!  Okay, so what’s happening?  We have had rain and lots more rain.  The last few days, the sun has come out a bit (hooray) but still more rain.  It is all quite splashy and puddly right now.  Still can’t get out there!!  If you recall in a New Year’s post I thought that the new year truly started according to the Lunar Calendar (ie. Chinese New Year)…well, it certainly looks that way.  We are heading towards Chinese New Year (next week, 16th of February) so we have to see if the new moon will allow us to get out on the farm and start (and finish) projects.

Not much to report except that I am planning the Chinese New Year celebration food which will include camp-fire gibnut…

Finished Cantonese Gibnut.

Pictures from the farm:

Drying tobacco; we have all-sorts including Burley, Virginia and Turkish.

Drying tobacco.

Gnome is still making charcoal; we have had some wild winds blowing down tree branches around the farm.  We are piling them all up to start another barrel of charcoal:

Fresh Charcoal.

The bucket garden fell down over Christmas but is now back up again.  We are not adding too many extra plants at this point because dry season is approaching:

Bucket Garden.

More plants up here too on the veranda.  The plants are taking over:

Tomatillo Plants.

Tomatillo:

Tomatillo.

Plants on the veranda; two types of eggplant (aubergine); one is a white round egg and the other is an oval orangey one with green stripes.  I will have pictures once they have formed:

Exotic Eggplant.

The goosie barricade around the house is slowly being formed.  Goosies be warned; you are a bunch of noisy trouble-makers and you need to be further away from us for our emotional and spiritual well-being.

Gnome’s Hadrian’s Wall.

Ooooh…lovely colour….sorrel elixir (tincture) in the making:

Sorrel Elixir.

Have a lovely night if you are still up!

Belize, Food, Plants

Tastes Like Apricot…

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Can you believe it!  Our stats went through the roof with New Sexy Gnome.  Too funny.  Anyway, back to the fruit and vegetables on the farm.  This one is interesting because I’ve written a bit on it here, so click if you want to read more:

Barbados Gooseberry.

I am re-discovering this plant again (since it is fruiting season right now) and it is fascinating.  I now recall years ago (it could have been about 8 years ago) when we first saw this plant in Spice Farms in Toledo and Gnome’s eagle eyes chanced upon a single fruit that had dried on the bush.  When we both tasted this we were absolutely amazed that it had such an intense flavour of apricot.  Anyway, we saved the single  seed that was in it.  Gnome planted this seed, babied it and it has turned into the huge monster that it is now.

Barbados Gooseberry Flower.
Edible Greens!!
Barbados Gooseberry.

The main point was that I forgot about the apricot taste because I subsequently pigeon-holed it as a “gooseberry” because of its name.  When it is picked fresh, it does have the texture and acidity of a gooseberry.  In the past, I have mixed it with other fruits to make jams and preserves and not really thought that the flavour was anything exciting or different.

However, this time I tried to make a “jam” out of the fruit by itself.  This is what I did:

  • I picked 2lbs of the fruit and washed them removing any spiky bits.
  • The fruits contain black seeds that are edible.  I felt that sifting the seeds out was too labour intensive so I opted to buzz the whole lot fruit in a blender.  The crushed seeds blend into the fruit.
  • I added equal parts sugar to the fruit and  placed all of this in a stainless steel stock-pot and proceeded to make jam.

This is what happened:

  • The jam did not set.  That means that the fruit does not have natural pectin.  I didn’t have any pectin so I couldn’t do anything about it so it ended up being a syrup (sauce) type of thing.
  • When I tasted the cooked fruit with sugar, it tasted of nothing.  Quite disappointing…a great looking orangey fruit cooked with sugar.
  • When cooked, the fruit takes on a gloopy (slimy) texture.  It’s not as bad as it sounds.
  • I thought that the flavour was so bland that I chucked in  about 4 Tbsp of ground black pepper.

I canned the “sauce” in glass jars and had some on the same day to try it out.  I didn’t think much of it so I planned to re-dump the the sauce into the stainless steel pot and add some kick-ass habanero peepers to it.

Time passed (a week) and I didn’t do anything with the sauce.  We were having oatmeal (we ran out of honey) and decided to put some of this sauce on top.  Wow was it good!!  It just needed time to work the magic…synergise…what-ever but it now tastes like apricots.  The black pepper compliments the sauce very well.  I am very pleased with it!!  I now have 6 jars of Barbados Gooseberry and Black pepper sauce sitting proudly in my pantry.  This one is so good I will save it for special occasions.

Gooseberry and Blackpepper Sauce.

Definitely worth picking:

More Barbados Gooseberry.

Okay have a great weekend!!