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!!
Hello!! This is Munchkin and yes, I logged in right this time. I am still pulling this face…so, I still feel like I’m holding the fort up on this blog. Munchkin Power!!
Just to let you know, in case you haven’t guessed already, the only plants that we like to have on our farm are edible or useful plants. Sorry, not just into pretty ornamentals that you can’t eat. But here’s a plant that serves many purposes and is also nice to look at. This is Canna indica (aka achira):
Canna indica
There are a whole host of other names including Indian arrowroot, African arrowroot and edible canna. We first read about this plant when we were looking into the possibility of using plants as a sewage filtration system …this has been characterised by the use of reeds…reed bed system. When we considered reeds, Gnome had said:’‘Mmmmm…you can’t really eat reeds….is there something else that can be more useful?”
After some more research, we discovered that this beautiful ornamental has been used for the treatment of industrial waste waters and has proven to remove high organic loads from waste water. Wow!! What a useful plant…one that we can incorporate into an organic waste disposal system!
And another wonderful thing is that you can eat the root of this plant raw, baked or cooked. I haven’t tried it yet but I assure you that it is one of the “must-eat”foods on the Munchkin list. Does anyone want to buy a plant? If you do, let me know and I will have some bagged in the new year! Cheers!!
Hello Everyone!! Just a reminder for the people out there who are interested in buying our Casa Mascia products. The newsletter will be starting up next month and if you want to take advantage of discounts, vouchers and news on latest products, please sign up for the newsletter.
Hello to y’all who are running around like headless chickens trying to find a can of cranberry jelly for Thanksgiving Day tomorrow. I have found the perfect substitute. It is made from a fruit that we have coined “sour peach” which grows here in the Belize. It has a lovely peachy aroma but once you bite into it, you start pulling funny faces because it is sooooo sour!
Hello to y’all who are running around like headless chickens trying to find a can of cranberry jelly for Thanksgiving Day tomorrow. I have found the perfect substitute. It is made from a fruit that we have coined “sour peach” which grows here in the Belize. It has a lovely peachy aroma but once you bite into it, you start pulling funny faces because it is sooooo sour!
