All posts by Munchkin

Double Duckie!!

March 13, 2017 Munchkin 2 Comments

We managed to hatch two duckies out of eight eggs. These two were no trouble at all and were very independent from the start. Apart from the feeding for the first few days, they paid scant attention to us and were out with the guinea pigs in three days. It’s getting easier being a duckie parent!!

We didn’t consider this a successful hatch since we were hoping for at least a 50% hatch rate. Gnome reckons that he sprayed the eggs with water, once, early on in development and thinking back, he feels that the cold temperature of the water may have destroyed the delicate embryos. This is what Gnome said:

“I read about this recommendation to spray eggs with cold water on the Internet. The moral of this story is never believe everything you read on the Internet…it could cost you a duckie or more!”

These two splashed about in water together and splatted food all around the aquarium. By three days, they were so independent (and messy) that we decided that they were ready for the guinea pig crèche.

Duckie 1: this one is a lighter coloured duckie with hardly any dark markings. Birth weight 49g.

Duckie 2: the birth weight for this one was also 49g but nevertheless looks bigger. Gnome says it is because he fluffed up a bit more so he gives the appearance of being larger.

Duckies:

“Oi Munchkin and Gnome! Just feed us. Apart from that we can entertain ourselves by splashing about in food and water and making a mess. Thanks a bunch!!”

“…you just need to clean up after us…”

So the plan for these duckies is to feed them up in the comfortable environment of the Guinea pig cage. Once they get to about 4 to 6 weeks (ie. too big for the cat to mistake as food) we hope to get them out foraging with the older one which is now about 12 weeks old.

Belize, Farming, Food, Plants

Gnome’s Tomatoes.

March 12, 2017 Munchkin 2 Comments

I am posting up pictures of Gnome’s tomatoes because he has nursed them through odd “dry season” rain and wind, blossom-end rot, assassin bug attacks, munching caterpillars and of course, the cat stepping on them. Despite all this, the plants are doing wonderfully and the fruit are getting bigger by the day. These are Black Krim (and some Cherokee) so should get to about 300 to 450g (about a 1lb) in weight. Gnome is judiciously trimming and removing buds as he has decided on 25 fruit per plant only. This is to optimise nutrient intake and maximise size.

I think he probably looks at his tomatoes nearly every hour and I hear him muttering,

“I love my tomatoes!!”

Anyone who has tried to grow tomatoes down here (problems with wetness, rot and disease-prone) will understand why I have dedicated one post to our tomatoes!

I would also like to dedicate this post to our friend Erin (in Montana…where it is still snowing) to further inspire her to keep planting seeds in preparation for spring. I am sure it will warm up soon!!

Belize, Farming, Food, Plants

Gnome Says That I Should Write Something…

March 10, 2017 Munchkin 1 Comment

Hello Everyone. Just is to give you an update on what’s happening. First of all, it has been raining for about two weeks now so our “let’s get crepuscular” thing fell flat on its face. There are heavy clouds looming over our farm so it looks like it is going to rain this weekend. Having said that, we are glad for the rains because everything was getting quite dry. And, Panda is very, very glad because his 660 gallon tank is nearly full so he is all set for the dry season.

We’ve been starting up seedlings for our nursery:

Tobacco: these are actually a lot bigger now than these teeny-weeny pictures.

All sorts of peppers including habaneros, jalapeños and cayenne peppers.

Oh, the tomatoes are looking very good. These are Gnome’s pride and joy. Growing tomatoes is a very difficult endeavour down here in Toledo because the plants are susceptible to all manner of diseases including mildews and molds. Plus the heavy rains cause stems to rot easily. We tried growing tomatoes years ago but gave up after a long struggle with disease and water-logging. We have decided to re-visit the tomato growing because we actually do like to eat them and the tomatoes that you buy here are truly tasteless.

We are growing them in buckets this time. And, Gnome is observing them every hour…he really loves his plants!!

Right now, our tray of parsley is quite a treat. Great with mashed potatoes:

You can grow herbs down here but they have to be in trays and buckets. In the rainy season, they can get damaged so you need some sort of cover. We’ve started rosemary and sage seeds too…these grow down here but also need a bit of care and attention.

Amusing, Belize, Saving Money

Shilling Bag Fun!

February 27, 2017 Munchkin

In Belize, the ubiquitous flimsy black plastic bag is called a “shilling bag.” As-well as having its normal function as a bag to hold groceries (try to get back home before the hole at the bottom gets bigger!!), there are many novel uses which are employed in this country.

Here are a few examples:

Foot Protectors: wear on open-toed sandals to stop feet getting muddy in the wet season.

Shoe Protectors: when you are wearing pretty patent shoes and don’t want to get them mucky before the party.

A shower cap: when you can’t find a shower cap to buy in the whole of Punta Gorda.

A sleeping bag for the cat…was rather chilly the other night!! Other cats…don’t try this at home…there is danger of suffocation. We have a savvy farm cat.

Next time, Wet Season fashion with Construction Plastic Ponchos…one size fits all!!

Amusing, Belize, Farming, Pets

Duckie-zilla!!!

February 26, 2017 Munchkin

There’s been a lot of commotion and general prolonged weeeeeeeeeee-weeeeeeee-weeeeeeeee!!! coming from the Guinea Pig cage (formerly known as Paradise Pastures; now renamed Zazen Temple of Piggies…ZTOP for short). If you want to know the Piggie Story, click here.

Shock!! Horror!! There’s a Gigantic Yellow Monster in ZTOP terrorizing the be-Jesus out of the innocent temple dwellers.

The Zazen piggies are quivering in terror:

“Help!! Mayor Gnome!!!”

Mayor Gnome: “Did the Piggies call for help!! I must save my Piggies!! What…a yellow monster?? In the Temple of Doom??!!”

Mayor Gnome: “Hey Piggies! That’s not a yellow monster! That’s Duckie!!”

Zazen Piggies: “Poppycock!! You mean that fine little blighter that you used to play with us? Can’t be….”

Mayor Gnome: “My dear piggies, that huge lumbering Duckie-zilla is your friend, the Duckie.”

Zazen Piggies: “Mayor Gnome, we would like to formerly dispute the identity of this yellow creature in an emergency meeting today!!”

Amusing, Belize, Pets

Meet The New-Comers!!

February 25, 2017 Munchkin

Meet the New-Comers to Casa Mascia Manor: The Overlord and The Duchess of Toledo.

The Overlord is of equivalent rank to The Gnome and acts as Guardian of the farm and general bossie of all fowl. His task at night is to sleep on a perch right in front of the house to guard Munchkin and Gnome. Morning duties include the wake up call at dawn with “Gobbble–Gobbble–Gobbble–Gobbble….” and to keep the duckies and goosies in line as they troop out of the coup in the morning. The rest of the day, he parades around the farm, puffing up his stomach every few seconds (with a loud POOF) to remind everybody of his rank and position on the farm.

The Duchess of Toledo is dainty and nimble on her feet. She likes nibbling on delicate greens and tiny insects. If we gave her egg and cress sandwiches on doilies, I am sure she would not be adverse to the fine pleasures which are be-fitting to her fine breeding. The only requirements of this lady is to be by the Overlord’s side for public appearances.

Amusing, Belize, Farming, Food, Pets, Plants

Whilst Waiting…

February 24, 2017 Munchkin

Whilst waiting for my freezer (one of those huge bottomless pit kind of freezers that you can get lost in) to de-frost, I will write my blog post. I have a whole load of pictures so I will try to thread a reasonable coherent story together for you of what we are doing right now. By the way, whenever I de-frost my freezer, I come across so many lost and forgotten goodies!! Will probably have a feast this weekend!!

Found these; Chinese Sausage!! Ooooh, you have to be Chinese to get excited about this stuff!! Ha-Ha.

Anyway, do you remember that at Chinese New Year, our darling little duckies gave us a gift of 8 eggs? It turns out to be even more special because on asking other local people, their ducks aren’t laying at all and don’t lay until March when the number of hours of day light increase. Anyway, so far there has been success with the incubator ie. the cat hasn’t sat on it this time round. This is because I deftly used Secret Invisibility Technique by sticking a vacuum cleaner in front of the incubator. Aha, I fooled the cat!!

The eggs were candled on day 3 to check if the embryos were forming; 6 out of the 8 eggs at that time appeared viable. Right now, two eggs have pipped and we are waiting to see how many actually hatch. Should be some fun, excitement and peep-peeping at the weekend!! With regards to our other darling little baby duckie (the lone duckie that hatched by itself despite the cat sitting on the incubator) he/she (we think “she” actually but have not properly sexed her) thinks she is a guinea pig now…sometimes a human being and definitely not one of those loud quacky things that quack around the yard. Yip, he/ she duckie is spending too much time with the piggies and loves to fall asleep to the dulcet tones of cavy noises.

I would also like to take this time to apologise for neglecting my food posts; I am either too busy or too lazy and can’t find the “in-between” state to re-start the food parades. We are still eating really well…I just haven’t written about them. With the dry season, there should be new harvests so I will endeavour to start again. I also want to post up my sorghum recipes…we eat it almost everyday now and is proving to be a very interesting, versatile and tasty grain. Look still eating great food:

Sorghum with Bamboo Shoots and Sweet Potato Greens.

It’s the usual stuff on the farm…always something to harvest…seeds to plant…and it comes round in cycles. You have to really like doing this to do it!!

Belize, Farming, Food, Saving Money

Ten Coconuts and Security.

February 21, 2017 Munchkin

One of the main reasons why I write posts on self-sustainable farming is to encourage others to do the same. I would like people to realise that yes, it is hard work (you can’t just sit around and talk all day) but also, you can use your brains to be innovative.

Spending the time doing things on the farm cuts down the need for money to buy things. Basically you are exchanging your physical labour in order to be less of a consumer.

Oh by the way, just in case you haven’t realised, we do all our own work on the farm. We do not hire anyone to do our work, in any aspect of our lives, because part of our philosophy is independence and healthy living.

The way that we process ten coconuts at a time is a perfect example of time well spent on the farm. Ideally, we would like to this every morning but life does get in the way, as it always does, and we are thwarted by weather, other pressing farm jobs, general maintenance, machinery that needs fixing, Apothecary orders and of course, medical call-outs.

If you sell 10 coconuts at the market, you will get $10 Belize Dollars. We have chosen not to do that because you can get so much more out from each coconut.

The husks and shells can be used for mulch on the farm:

Shells can be used as vessels to hold food for poultry:

When you crack open the coconuts, there is coconut water. You still get water from oil coconuts…of course, you get more from water coconuts. This can be consumed or it can actually be used as a highly nutritional plant irrigation water (contains sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium).

The coconuts are grated by hand by Gnome:

Coconut milk and coconut cream can be squeezed from this; Munchkin’s job:

Coconut milk has a high protein content; it can be added to stews, breads and anything really to boost protein content and flavour. In addition, coconut milk (and cream) can be used to make very nice desserts.

Coconut Haupia:

We bag the coconut cream to use in cooking; it can be used in stews, curries, desserts, anything really! At this point, the cream can be further processed into coconut oil to make our soaps and stuff. If we have excess, we sell these in Supaul’s in Punta Gorda.

Okay, still not done yet!! After squeezing out the cream and milk, you get the left over coconut meal. Once the fat has been extracted, it now becomes a very high protein product(12 to 14%…compare to corn which is between 9 to 11%). This can be sun-dried and then milled to make coconut flour:

Or, it also makes great animal feed. All manner of poultry like it and even our guinea pigs are quite partial to it too:

Go on then…plant a few coconuts in your back yard for food security…it’s great stuff!!

Belize, Farming, Food

Crepuscular Time Again!

February 20, 2017 Munchkin

Yes, time to get Crepuscular. This means that you get up at the crack of dawn, have a cup of tea and run out to do farm chores and then run back into the cool of the house before noon-time. Resting time is until it cools down again…about 4pm…then you run out again to do the end-of-the-day chores. This is the rhythm that we get into as dry season approaches. Gnome has got the brush-mower out and is cleaning up:

The Bush:

Of course, Munchkin work involves less heavy stuff but still keeps me fit and healthy. I am making use of my new wheel-barrow to collect soil for the garden. We are starting fennel today…the bulbs and the wild type. Yum…can’t wait…they are a favourite!

More harvests on the farm…we have Barbados Gooseberry…time to make more jam!!

Amusing, Belize, Farming, Plants

Munchkin and Gnome’s Cesspool.

February 18, 2017 Munchkin

Hello Everyone and it feels like the start of dry season again. That means (for us, anyway) that it is very, very hot and the plants need to be watered. The secret of Gnome and Munchkin’s success, this year, in keeping a little vegetable garden going at this time of the year is because of our little cesspool.

Nice vegetables growing healthily and happily:

Because of our little cesspool:

Gnome has fixed things in such a way (with an uncomplicated system of drainage pipes and siphons) to drain all our grey water into this pool. Right now, this includes mostly washing-up and laundry water. He will be working on a new shower location in the dry season which will drain water directly into this pool. The duckies also swim about poop in it adding further wonderful nutrients to the bubbling chaos. In other words, this is our very own home-made “plant food”; this provides all the plant nutrient requirements to make our vegetables grow with vigour and lushness.

When I asked Gnome to read this blog post, he said it was “okay.” I asked him why he thought it was just “okay.” He replied by saying that the title of my post did not evoke thoughts of Munchkin and Gnome being “cool and exciting.”

Well, I asked him, “what should I say instead?”

Gnome said, cheekily, “howz about ‘M & G’s Organic Electrolyte Balanced Maximum Velocity Irrigation Water??!!!”

I said, “yes of course, darling.”

…stared blankly at the computer screen, blinked once, didn’t even think twice about changing the title, and pressed the “publish” button.

Casa Mascia Apothecary