All posts by Munchkin

Gnome is the New Sexy!

January 31, 2018 Munchkin

Well, he’s turned white (nearly) so we said why not?? Gnome is the new sexy!! This is also a pathetic bid to get our stats up…can a handsome picture of the Gnome get more people to read our Blog and be spurred to transform their lives in significant ways??

Anyway, what’s happening? It’s been pouring down for days, so much so that I’ve lost count of the number of days. The ground around the house is getting muddy and wet and it doesn’t help with the geese trampling about with their big clumsy feet. The goosies are a bunch of loitering hooligans around our house right now and I am getting headaches from their constant screeching and shrieking. Gnome’s comment:

“…if only they used that noisy energy to lay eggs…at least they could do something useful…”

Gnome has been feeling a bit dour lately and has commenced Gnome’s Hadrian’s Wall of Tyres. He is systematically forming a high fence of tyres around the house…an impenetrable barrier against the dastardly goosies.

Munchkin: “Gnome, I thought you liked the geese.”

Gnome: “Of course I like them. If I didn’t I’d make it a lot easier for myself and get rid of the whole lot. Instead, I am moving heavy tyres on account of them.”

Anyway, we are filling the tyres with soil, seaweed and sawdust; our plan is plant in each stack of tyres…we will be starting with papaya and I am sure we will think of many other food plants and trees. I will have pictures for the next post. I just wanted to showcase the New Look Gnome on this one. 🙂

Amusing, Blog

New Look Munchkin!

January 26, 2018 Munchkin

It has been horribly grey and pouring down the last few days. This afternoon, it has surprisingly cleared up with the sun shining and blue skies. There is not much farm news since the weather has not been conducive to outside work. Gnome has been learning to program with C++ with an (ancient) book from 1989. He says that it still covers the basics and that it doesn’t matter that it is an old book. I have been making lip balms and all sorts of concoctions. When the weather is like this, I usually go through a kitchen marathon. Anyway, not much to report but thought I would share with you my New-Look Munchkin since I can’t get any new pictures of the present character. This one is a more mature character…a snow woman in fact..

Munchkin surprised:

Munchkin Upside-Down:

Munchkin Thinking:

Amusing, Belize, Feedback

Morning Wake Up!!

January 23, 2018 Munchkin

I woke up this morning at the usual time 6am and then dived under the covers, covering my ears. I pretended that I was snoozing. Gnome was tossing and turning and huffing and puffing because he knew what was about to come: the usual 6am DIN. The goosies go off like nothing on earth…shrieking and honking like there is no tomorrow right at our doorstep: HONK –WAKEUP–HONK!!!! RISE AND SHINE MUNCHKIN AND GNOME–HONK HONK!!!. This has been our wake up call for the last two weeks and it has been gradually driving us potty! Gnome shouted into my little cave under the blankets,

“…can you sleep through that??”

No I couldn’t but I was insisting on not getting up!! Right now we are having early morning rains which is the perfect reason for sleeping in…but the geese are making it impossible. Anyway, as we got up, the noise rose to a fever pitch and when I opened the front door to peak through a crack, they cackled and shrieked with gusto… and when I finally opened the door wide, they suddenly stopped like nothing had happened. They were shuffling about on the yard minding their own business.

I swear, they are doing this on purpose!! The goosies are out to get us with their evil goosie taunts…

Anyway, last night we decided that we can’t stand the noisy geese during breeding season which happens to be 6 months of the year! An executive decision has been made to: “fence them out.” We are going to have a fence around our house to protect us from the noise pollution . We can’t however do it this year because any changes bang in the middle of breeding season will probably incite a riot and we might be over-thrown in the power struggle.

The original plan was to “Fence Goosies In” to protect them from critters and possums. The new plan is to “Fence Goosies out” to protect us from them…

“Fence Goosies Out.” is going to be job#586: we will get to it hopefully by the end of the year. Meanwhile, we have to get up at 6am every morning, rain or shine…

Belize, Food, Plants

Interesting Garden Plants.

January 21, 2018 Munchkin

Wow…Munchkin is really balancing on the precipice of excitement with her innovative titles. 🙂

This is a red spinach called orach (Atriplex hortensis). It has a mildly bitter taste which makes a good salad leaf. When cooked, it still preserves its lovely red colour (compare with red okra that unfortunately turns green with heat). According to Wiki, it has a “salty taste” which I don’t taste at all (warning: not everything that you read on the Internet is for real!!). It is a member of the amaranth family so you can some resemblance to callaloo which is a well-known green leafy vegetable here in Belize.

This is called Wonderberry (Solanum retroflexum) and produces tiny purple berries (like a huckleberry). The berries are good for making jam and preserves. We have a whole bunch of these growing on our beds and we can’t get a single berry because the early bird gets them. We are considering re-location of these plants to a more secluded area…not going to say where in case a little birdie is reading this!

The other day when we were walking together hand in hand through our messy, shrubby overgrown garden (aaarrrrghhh…need a brush-mower, a cow or sheep or somethin’), Gnome suddenly stopped in his tracks and looked upwards saying’ “…thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!!” I thought that he was in the throes of rapture but then I looked up too and saw these flowers peaking out at us; our first kola nut (bizzy nut) flowers. I have written about this tree here if interested in reading more.

This is lantana; it is a plant that comes up as a weed everywhere here. It is a honey plant for butterflies. We have decided that we rather like looking at butterflies and are leaving these flowers around our yard.

Have a good evening!!

Belize, Elixirs, Farming, Plants

What Happens To January?

January 20, 2018 Munchkin 2 Comments

What happened to January? We are more than half way through already!! Despite this, we are still doing our New Year’s greetings…maybe it is just us because we don’t see people that often. Anyway, there is always work to be done and there is never enough time to do it all. I have been catching up with harvesting; what we both hate is leaving stuff on trees and watching them drop to the ground. Today, I harvested the sorrel (roselle). I have to admit that I feel very lazy when I think about these because you have to sit and take off every single sepal. My problem is that I don’t like sitting down and this task forces me to be sedentary.

You have to remove the sepals from the pods:

Seed Pods Separated From the Sorrel Fruit.

These are the sepals all nicely cleaned up:

It is however very satisfying once it is all done. This year, I am making Sorrel Elixir (liqueur); I am making two versions: one has very little sugar and they other is more syrupy. I think that the sugary one will do very well poured over ice-cream and desserts. The colour is really amazing when you see the sorrel infusions. It looks better than this in real life.

But then it gets very dark as it matures:

Once it is mature, it tastes a bit like a sherry.

Here is the sepal picture again just because it is rather beautiful!

Have a lovely day!!

Amusing, Belize, Food, Plants

Vegetable Pictures!

January 17, 2018 Munchkin

It is still really cold at about 20C/68F; you know when it gets to this temperature because the coconut oil in the bottles solidify! Anyway, still hats, woolly scarves and home-made charcoal burner at our feet in the morning and at night. So glad Gnome is making charcoal!

We are still taming the chaos…does not happen over-night and I suspect it might take us a while to get back on top of things. The other thing is that the geese are getting badder (I like baaad english!! Pushing passed the barriers of expression) and I got a huge bruise on my thigh from a full throttle head-on attack. I had to sumo wrestle the head goosie and boy, did he have fun! When I let him win, he was honking like crazy and puffing out his chest as he weaved in and out of his goosie crowd, doing the goosie dance (a bit like a chicken dancing but with no head bobbing…head up in the air in the splendour of victory). I let him win, of course, since I have the unfair advantage of being bigger and cleverer and being human. 🙂

Anyway, back to the serious Munchkin and Gnome stuff. Growing vegetables, ogling at our vegetables, eating them and (taking pictures when we remember). We don’t grow vegetables or do our lifestyle in order to Blog about it!! Somebody asked us if we chose our lifestyle in order to talk (Blog) about it…what a very weird way of looking at things!!

To clarify: we grow vegetables to eat them because they taste good.

Vegetable and Fruit Gallery:

Endives grow very well; they are quite drought resistant so we might be able to take them through the dry season.

The fennel looks spectacular right now:

Kale grows well here too:

Spring onions:

Oh had to sneak in last New Year yum-yum picture. Smoked salmon (my favourite), prosciutto, salami and parmesan.

Barbados gooseberry (Ora pro nobis) time again:

Time to make more jam and preserves!

Amusing, Farming, Food, Plants

All About The Marrow.

January 14, 2018 Munchkin 4 Comments

I know, I know…this is ground-breaking Munchkin writing, pushing the boundaries of blog content and shattering the mundane illusion of life. Marrows; it’s all about the marrows…and if you are British (in any shape or form, even Aussie will do) you should know all about marrows.

So, this silly story all started when I stumbled across marrow seeds in the Farm Store in Punta Gorda, Toledo (Belize) of all places. I presumed that since I had purchased these seeds here that everyone grew marrows, like we all grow the ubiquitous tomato or cucumber. When I chanced across any British people that I knew around town, after the usual greetings, talking about the weather or Trump, I would then turn the conversation to the fact that I was growing marrows. The usual response was, “…oh yes, but of course.” It was a given that I was growing marrows and no explanations were required.

Anyway, when I chanced across any non-British and I steered the conversation to matters of the marrow, I received very blank stares. Some minor blinking but nonetheless there was no-one at home and registering. I would get usually get: “..oh, uhu.” and then a sudden change in conversation. Some-times I would get a perplexed, “what is a marrow?”

Well, I never! I never thought that I would have to explain what a marrow was. Well, you know..doesn’t every-one know?

“…it’s a big green vegetable…a bit like a pumpkin and you try to grow it as big as you can so you can enter marrow competitions…”

I did give this explanation and felt my face flush with embarrassment after-wards because I felt that I didn’t actually know what a marrow was.

After feeling like a silly sausage, I decided it best to do some research. Okay, so now I do know what a marrow is:

A Marrow is the mature fruit of the Cucurbita pepo of the genus Cucurbita.

(This bit is only helpful if you know your latin and into botany…so, let me explain it another way…)

The immature fruit of a marrow is a courgette (or zucchini) so a marrow is an old zucchini. Well I never! I didn’t know that. They are grown to a large size so that they can be stuffed with meat and other things. Also, in temperate countries, marrows can be stored for many weeks after harvest.

If you wish to enter your marrow in competitions (as far as I know, they only do this in the UK), you are restricted to growing only the striped thick-skinned cultivar.

Okay, so now you can ask me all about the marrows!! Anyone for a Marrow Growing Competition in Belize??

Belize, Farming

Taming The Chaos!

January 13, 2018 Munchkin 2 Comments

Phew…everything inside and outside just exploded into chaos these last few weeks. Just a couple of weeks trying to take it easy has culminated in a majorly messy farm. Okay, but we are ready to face the work and the gate has been fixed and now closes properly. Yeah! Gnome said:

“…it’s still wonky though…but not so wonky….”

He had to change the hinges to these ones to shorten one side of the gate so that the gate would close properly:

Yeah, I know, you are probably thinking who would take pictures of their gate hinges? Munchkin and Gnome of course because hinges are of vital importance in putting gates up…if you ever need to do it yourself, you will understand. The Gate Closes!

Gnome has been making charcoal. The first lot did not burn well so Gnome had to drill more holes in the bottom of the steel drum to allow more air flow:

Now we have this burning continuously outside our house to make charcoal; what would the neighbours say? It is a good thing that they are so far away!! 🙂

One load of wood packed into this drum reduces to about a quarter volume of charcoal. Right now, we are using the charcoal to boil water for washing. Gnome says that he is going to make me a charcoal cooking stove. He is already trying to perfect the home-made tin stoves with air flow windows:

Watch this space for cooking Munchkin-Style on a tin charcoal stove…

Right now for our personal needs, Gnome needs to burn a drum of wood every three days. Our hope is to entice Panda to start making charcoal and designate him head collier. 🙂

Amusing, Belize, Farming

A Sunny Day…

January 10, 2018 Munchkin 2 Comments

Another bright sunny day and so we keep on going with our dream farm which is always “in progress” or “in process.” Arrrgh…but when you look outside, everything is getting bushy because we can’t get the grass done (walk behind brush-mower is no longer working -RIP). We are attracting a lot of toucans, light blue birdies and bright red coloured birdies because of the semi-bushy state. A bird spotter would cringe at my lack of birdie knowledge…ha-ha!!

Very Bushy:

Anyway, I kind of mentioned that we had lost all our guinea pigs to a rogue possum. Yes I know…Paradise Piggies are no more and have passed onto become Heavenly Piggies.

We love you piggies!! Miss you!!

So, every night, for the last 5 nights, we have been baiting the possum with an enticing bucket of scraps that we place in full veranda-view on the nearest vegetable bed. Sure enough, every night something has been knocking it over and slurping out of the bucket. They never finish it because it is too much and every night I set the bucket up straight for it.

A few days ago, we decided that it was time “to get the possum.” During our much-loved sleeping time, we donned our long sleeves, long trousers and woolly hats and sat in the darkness of the veranda waiting quietly for the possum. Gnome had his pellet gun ready (for full destruction) and I had lights ready to switch on to dazzle. I also had a bucket of brine ready to dunk the cleaned carcass in preparation of a possum dutch oven/curry for the day after.

Anyway, we waited and waited and waited. The stars were pretty!! And when I got accustomed to the darkness, I could see different shades of blackness…kind of poetic and meditative if you ignore the biting mosquitoes!!

(Meanwhile the cat was in the house sleeping…usually by now he would have been kicked out for his usual night duty).

Okay, so nothing happened…and no possum came…not much of a story, right?

Oh but what happened when we finally got the cat out of the house in the wee hours of the night? The bucket turned over…

We’ve been baiting the cat??!! Oops…upside down picture…not upside down cat!!

Where is that darn possum?? I really want my possum curry. Yes we have declared war on all possums in the vicinity…

Belize, Farming

Starting Again!

January 9, 2018 Munchkin

Okay, so we listened to our Jungle Tune a few more times and then we got up and started moving around. We feel a bit better today. We are running out of charcoal because we are boiling water every night for washing (shower re-location…usual…blah-blah-blah…renovating) so Gnome started making charcoal today. He basically filled a 55 gallon drum with wood and started a fire in it. Every now and then, he checks on the drum of wood…shoogles and shakes the contents…there is the sound of some tin bashing about and then I hear him adding more logs of wood.

In between all this, he has started C++ programming tutorials for fun. And there is another reason: Panda very nicely bought him a Raspberry Pi kit (never knew anything like that existed) which is a little computer that integrates electronics with computer programs (which can be coded in C++ hence the sudden resurgence of computer programming excitement). These afternoons, we are working through Raspberry Pi tutorials together; I wire the circuit and he programs. It is actually nice and romantic in a Munchkin and Gnome sort of way.

From a purely practical point of view, this gadget actually opens doors to all-new Gnome inventions-(TM) -guaranteed to make life easier on the farm-kinda like Wallace and Gromit. The first experiment is a RFID cat flap for our cat and then we will branch out and RFID tag our female geese to help get them into designated feeding areas. Watch this space…Munchkin and Gnome: The Next Generation!!

Kitty is going to get a special electronic cat flap!

There is much to do, clean up, tidy up and maintain that I just need to walk out of the door and pick the nearest thing. I began by cleaning up the vegetable beds and started up some more vegetable seedlings. We have to be careful about what we plant now because we will have to look after these plants over dry season. We have managed to plant out all our fruit trees and spread cardboard mulch around them…the cardboard is great because it will eventually break down and add to the soil and it stops weeds from growing up around the trees. Also, thanks Panda for bringing us cardboard every week (amongst other useful things including sawdust and seaweed).

Casa Mascia Apothecary