Category Archives: Amusing

Amusing, Belize, Plants

Shampoo Ginger.

4 Comments

Gnome is a neophile and so he always likes to try new things:

“Munchkin, howz about you try using the shampoo ginger on your hair?”

Shampoo Ginger.

Munchkin is a neophobe and does not like new things,

“Eh…why don’t you try it first?”

He kinda of gave me a funny look and then I realised that he had just shaved his head again so there was no hair to wash.  I had to change tact:

“Okay then, let’s try the cat…”

I got the same funny look.  He didn’t need to say anything.  We haven’t washed the cat for five years so I think that the cat bossie would be none too pleased to be grabbed and washed with a flower.  There would be a lot of scratching and clawing…

Okay, so I realised that I was the prime candidate to use shampoo ginger (Zingiber zerumbet) ; the root and the leaves  of this ginger are edible and can be used as aromatic flavouring in cooking.  The red flower heads can be squeezed to extrude a soapy liquid which feels like diluted soap and smells like soap.  Apparently the Hawaiians use this as shampoo and conditioner for hair.  We always find that the same information (usually from Wiki) just gets re-hashed from one blog to another without anyone actually trying it out.  Gnome reckons that it is important to write from personal experience so I decided to be the “guinea pig.”

I was a bit tentative at first because I have so many problems with itchy scalp in the past from hair products.  I had to end up using dermatological preparations until Gnome formularised the coconut castile soap (AKA Can’t Believe it’s not DB’s) for my hair.  Anyway, I harvested the “shampoo” by squeezing the flower heads into a bucket.

Shampoo Ginger Juice.

I managed to get about 1 litre (1 quart) of liquid from about 6 flower heads.  I thoroughly wet my hair in the shower and poured the whole lot of juice onto my head.  It was mildly soapy; I massaged my scalp for a bit and rubbed the juice into my hair right to the very ends.  My hair felt very smooth with it.  After drying my hair, my hair was clean, shiny and felt a lot softer and well conditioned.  Oh, and no itchy scalp so I was doubly pleased.  Okay so it does work so I recommend it and we might even make a hair product with it in the future.

Oh by the way, according to Wiki you can drink this juice as a refreshing drink. We tried that too…only drink under survival conditions…it tastes like  mild soap.  It’s drinkable but not exactly as thirst-quenching  as a cold lemonade!

Amusing, Belize, Farming, Food, Plants

The Usual Farm Stuff…

Hello!!  Yes we did attend the British High Commission reception a few days ago.  Well, we kinda thought that it was a good idea to show our faces since we hardly leave the farm.  Gnome:

“…well, we haven’t been seen in public for a while…people might start to believe we are  fictional characters…”

Somebody asked me why I was attending and I said that it was because I was Scottish…somehow I think that there was a joke contained in the question…

Anyway, back on the farm, It has stopped raining for a few days but it is still very grey.  At least we can walk out and not be sloshing about in wetness!!  I’ve got some new pictures…mostly vegetables and plants…ha-ha…we are soooo exciting…but what pictures could we possibly have to show you if we have a farm?

We are growing horseradish which also doubles up as mustard greens.  They are in buckets on the veranda…this is to ensure that we always get our greens even when I can’t get out with the heavy rains or if the geese are plotting to ambush me downstairs.

Horseradish.

The peppermint is growing really well.  And hey look…my pictures are getting better…

Peppermint.

Finally, at long last, we have managed to get the sage and rosemary going.  Yes, these are more plants on the veranda that need shelter from the heavy rains.

Sage.
Rosemary.

The akee are starting too:

Akee.

Oh and here is a picture of our back yard.  We do indeed live in the bush…

Bushy Yard.

Okay, last farm picture; the summer squash is going crazy with the rains.  I guess you can’t complain too much about the weather when you get this:

Summer Squash.

Have a lovely weekend.

Amusing, Belize, Philosophy

Have We Done Enough?

1 Comment

This post is written for Gnome.  We’ve spent the last week or so cooped up in the house (more rains and wetness all around).  He asked me yesterday, “…have we done enough dear…I don’t think we’ve done enough…”  GUFFAW!!!  Shrieky Fury Munchkin!!  Okay this is what we’ve done in seven days: canned 57 jars of sorghum, canned 114 jars of black beans, made two lots of soap, planted chrysanthemums and fennel out, made soursop cider (56 bottled and under pressure), made sorghum and jackass bitters beer and making coconut castile soap as we speak! WHAT!!  I told Gnome that he needed a reality check and that we were doing plenty.  I think I ranted, raved and shook my fists at him enough for him to get the idea!!

So this is what we have been doing…

Canned Sorghum.
Straining Sorghum Beer.
Bottled Soursop Cider.
Toasting Sorghum for Beer.

Oh and gathered some wild papayas to make relish:

Wild Papayas.

Studying the life cycle of butterflies for fun too:

Caterpillars.

Now I do recall when we worked in the Emergency Department in good old Royal Darwin Hospital that the average number of patients seen per doctor was about 25 in an 8 hour shift.  He used to see about 40 patients in a shift.

We’re not running a hospital my dear!  It’s just a few ducks and geese flapping about.  No emergencies here. Remember that we chose this life-style to live a more tranquil life.  You know…the spiritual quest thingy-me-bobs that we go on about…and the philosophy and all that stuff….

Anyway, after my silly little rant I went outside and was backed into a corner by Chiney-goosie and Rebel-goosie (yes, they have names!).  They sneered and threatened me, pecking fiercely at my ankles; I had to fight them within an inch of my life (just exaggerating a bit but they were behaving like hooligans).  Anyway, I ran back to Gnome and wailed,

“Oh Gnome!!  The geese cornered and attacked me!!”

Gnome’s response: “Oh that’s great dear, it means that it is breeding season soon.”

WRONG ANSWER!! And then I started Fury Munchkin again….

Amusing, Belize, Farming, Our Products

Hello!!

Hello Everyone!!  Well, tropical storm Nate passed by without a drop of rain.  We had stayed indoors on that day (thinking it was going to pour down) but it was actually a fine sunny day.  Gnome said afterwards,

“let’s never look at weather reports EVER again!!  They never get it right!”

Munchkin:  “Yeah sure but if you remember correctly it was the fruit-monger who told us about the incoming storm first…”

Gnome said:  “Since when did the fruit-monger become a meteorologist?”

Munchkin: “Eh…since we trashed the last weather report…”

Anyway, it is absolutely pouring down right now so I am forced to come indoors.  Anyway, I should really keep up with my blog posts!

What have we been up to?  Making some new chocolate soaps for the new season; oooh nice!!  And I even managed to take a cool looking picture (a la Panda…he’s really into fuzzy background photos…sorry, I mean professional looking “coffee table” pictures!!  Ha-Ha!!)

Chocolate Soap.

Oh, and Gnome bought me this Vision cooking pot as a gift.  It was about time for some new cookware!!  Over the years, I’ve slowly accumulated bits of kitchenware from people (usually people leaving Belize because they don’t want to be here any-more).  So, I’ve ended up with a hotch-potch assortment of old pots and pans…and many missing lids.  Gnome told me it was about time that I should have my own set of cookware:

“Munchkin…you really love cooking….why, after all this time have we never got you your own set of pots and pans?”

Gnome bought me one of these to “try out” and I absolutely love it.  This is great for french onion soup.  Ooooh, can’t wait to get the whole set!!

Vision Cookware.

We’ve been digging up our sweet potatoes…they are huge:

Sweet Potato.

Tobacco is growing and Gnome has been soaking dried leaves in a solution of brown sugar and lovely essential oils.  He has packed them in bamboo to cure.  Watch this space in 12 months:

Tobacco Curing Solution.
Bamboo.

Tobacco:

Dried Tobacco Leaves.

Ok folks, I would lIKE TO WRITE MORE BUT MY CAPS LOCK KEEPS STICKING…LOOK AT tHIs!!

Amusing, Belize, Farming

Catching Up!

1 Comment

With the equinox, Goosie Wars have begun; the shorter day lengths have caused an immediate switch in temperament.  Goose breeding season is starting and they will lay sometime in February.  This is what happened a few days ago: Gnome went out into the yard and was immediately pecked at by big bossie goosie on the big toe!  Then another male goose lunged at him side-ways.  It was a close call and Gnome was rather taken aback by the fray.

Gnome shouted out to me,

“Watch out Munchkin!!  Goosie wars have started!”

This means six months of goosie bullying, severe hooliganism and general chaos on the farm.  When I go down to the yard every morning, I will have to be armed with a broom.  Watch out Panda too…goosies are really brutal with him!!

Mean and Tough!!

As a follow-up to the “mechanical failure” of the weed-wacker, the carburetor needed adjustment; Gnome’s comment:

“I messed around with the screws that the manual said that shouldn’t be messed around with…”

So, we are clearing bush right now…sorry, I wish I had more exciting “catching up” news for you but it can be a bit mundane at times!

Amusing, Belize, Farming

No Rest!!

Happy Independence Day Everyone!!  The celebrations started last night about 5pm in Punta Gorda…will run through the whole day today and I am not sure when it will finish (might run onto the weekend  if it’s at all possible).  Friday morning should be fun since it is still a normal working day!  Well, no rest for Munchkin and Gnome today…we are still charging ahead on the farm.

Only one problem.  Gnome says,

“Mechanical failure!”

Oh!!  No!!  Not again!!  This time it’s the weed-wacker.  it hasn’t been running that well lately and Gnome thought it was the air filter so off we went to the Farm-store yesterday to buy the filter.  It turned out to be a tiny piece of foam with two holes punched in it and it cost $4.  I guffawed (remember I am Chinese) at the till attendant and said to the boy,

“…it’s just a piece of foam…”

He was actually very sympathetic and he said,

“I know! I wouldn’t buy that for $4 either!”

Good, I am glad that we were all in agreement but I still had to buy it anyway.

Despite the change in air filter, the weed-wacker is still acting up so Gnome is back to this:

Gnome Keeping Out of Trouble.

We may take day off after all and join in with the celebrations!  We have Panda coming round later for Birthday waffles so we will have a wee bit of a “knees-up.”

Amusing, Belize, Farming

Houdini Duckie!!

Phew…what a sweat fest it has been for the last week.  I have been walking about with a sore head from all the heat.  Today is a blessing with morning rains and marked coolness.  Oh lovely!!  So, the headache was definitely due to the heat.

Another silly Duckie Tale!!  About 6 months ago, we bought a new lot of fowl from a neighbour; this included a pair of geese and a pair of turkeys (The Overlord and the Duchess).  The neighbour was trying to off load her fowl because her dogs were attacking them and she felt sad that they had to kept in a protected coop all the time.  She threw in a duckie as a freebie since it was all alone and she had lost her drake partner to the dog.

At that point, when this new duckie joined us we had 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 duckies.  After about 2 to 3 weeks, I kept on counting 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 duckies.  This was back when the ducks had total free range of the entire farm and could come and go as they pleased.  They were herded into the coop at night.   Some days I would count 8 ducks as they trooped into the coop for their daily corn ration.  Other days there would be 6 ducks so I reckoned that some of them wanted to stay out and I felt that having independant ducks was okay at that time.  During the last 6 months our duckie rearing practices have changed because they were laying eggs haphazardly all over the farm.  Most of the time the dogs were getting them.  We decided to keep them for a short while in the guinea pig houses.  When we made this change, we had 7 duckies and I could not find number 8 (the new recruit).  We looked everywhere and gave her up as lost.

So, we had 7 ducks definitely for a while.  Four months ago, we let them all out in the confines of the duck coop (aka zen garden).  After a while, there were 6 ducks.  No idea what happened to that one.  Then there were 5 ducks (snake?)…then, definitely 4 by the end of the boa incident.  So, I’ve been counting 4 for about 6 weeks now.  I need to remind you  at this point that the coop is now sealed so the ducks can’t get in or out of it.

Last night I counted 1-2-3-4…5!!

Where did the fifth one come from???  It just appeared from nowhere and joined the usual food fight in the evening like she had always been there.  She is really skinny and she looks like the new duckie that we gave up for lost about 6 months ago.

We have no idea where she came from and what she has been doing all this time.  Gnome reckons that she has been hiding inside the cardamom bush in the coop all this time (setting with no eggs!) and she has been so perfectly camouflaged that we haven’t spotted her.  What…for 6 months!!!  Hmmmm….maybe…or she’s a magician duckie and walks through walls and coops!!

So, where have you been all this time??

Where have you been?

(Not Telling!)

Amusing, Belize, Construction, Farming

The Usual…

So, what’s the usual for us?  Gnome put it quite succinctly today,

“I spend most of my time just fixing things and nothing gets done!”

So, the freezer is on its last legs and we are systematically going through all the food to preserve them.  So far, we have canned the fruit and we have made miso out of the canistel (it’s bright orange, by the way).  Next are the chicken feet (I know, you are probably wondering what I am doing with 50lbs of chicken feet…I’m not quite sure either).  No, that was a joke…I know exactly what to use chicken feet for…they actually make the best soup.

Gnome is still working on his construction and yesterday it nearly all ground to a standstill again.  The circular saw stopped working!  Luckily it started working again once the brushes were cleaned out.

Oh, and the washing machine…that stopped too last week and I had to hand wash a whole load.  I was really annoyed because I had chucked in a load of towels and sheets!  Anyway, Gnome had a good look at it and it appears that the water sensor for medium wash is broken.  Well that’s actually okay because I just need to set it to a small wash instead and it works.  So, we managed to bypass that problem.  Gnome says that washing machines should last forever…you just need all the replacement parts for the sensors and the capacitor.  We are going to keep our washing machine going no matter what!!

Washing Machine.

Just as an aside, Gnome took the outer cover:

Washing Machine Cover.

and gave it to a goose as cover around a nest (a while back).  The goose actually snubbed the gift and moved all her eggs to a different area.  Talk about being difficult!!

“No I don’t want the washing machine cover around my nest!!”

Sitting Goose.

I want to end with something nice.  So here it is: this is a huge 4 lb (2kg) mango given to us by the Taiwanese.  The seed is really thin and tiny so most of the weight is the flesh.  Oh, and the best thing about it is that it tastes so sweet and divine.  We are definitely planting the seed!

Big Mango.
Amusing, Belize, Farming, Food

Adventures in Eating…

Hello There!!  It’s a bright and shiny day today so I feel a bit brighter and shinier.  How interesting that the weather has a lot to with your mood.  Anyway(s), we are doing okay although our never-ending construction has come to a temporary stand-still due to massive pond formations around the house.  Nevertheless, we have braved the days with our usual creativity and Munchkin & Gnome interesting ideas.  Since, we were both stuck inside the house together (with rains), we decided to have some adventures with food.  So, here’s some of the stuff that we got up up to in the kitchen, messing around.

Lotsa aubergines from the farm:

Our Aubergines.

These are very nice cooked on a cast iron grill and served  with a little bit of olive oil drizzled on top.  Yum!!

Grilled Aubergine.

Ahhhh….this one is for the Chinese or the very adventurous; these are stinkhorn mushrooms (aka bamboo pith).  These come out with the rains especially near bamboo patches but generally speaking, they do come up fairly commonly everywhere on our farm in Toledo.

This is a very pretty specimen with a lacy veil.

Bamboo Pith Mushroom.

These mushrooms can also be picked at their young stage (aka known as Witches’ Eggs).

Stink-horn Eggs.

Clean them up, chop them up and put them in soups and stews.  This mushroom imparts a slimey texture kinda like eating fish eyes (ooooh…that’s the Chinese coming out in me…I’m trying to tell it tastes really good….but, you probably think that sounds really awful).  On the other hand, you could also describe them as “land oysters”…there, does that sound more enticing??

Chopped up Bamboo Pith.

We are still going with the gelato; this one is made from canistel which is in season right now.

Canistel.

Canistel kinda tastes like cooked sweet potato.  There is a lot of carbohydrate content in the fruit and this provides a firm texture to ice-cream.  Oh, and we made this on with ground fresh jalapeño.  By the way, I just noticed that the picture looks a bit like a pair of breasts(!).  It wasn’t my intention but there you go!!

Canistel Ice-Cream.

We still have more messing around in the kitchen.  Our 27 cubic feet freezer is in its last death throes.  It’s moaning and groaning and making awful gurgling noises all the time.  Plus, it’s sucking up a whole lot of electricity.  So, the plan is to to can (in ball jars) everything in the freezer until there is nothing left.  Switch it off and let the old freezer rest in peace.  That’s no mean feat if you can guess how much food a Munchkin is capable of hoarding!!

Amusing, Belize, Food, Plants

A Few Small Things…

Oh it’s a horrible, grey muggy day today!!

Gnome admonishes me and says, “Stop complaining, Babes…”

And I reply, “It’s not a complaint!  It’s a description!!”

It is really grey.  It is really muggy.  🙂  Ha-Ha, one must keep up the humour especially during these times and use emoticons to show that everything is really in the greatest humour possible!!  🙂

Well anyway(s), here are a few small things to show you what’s happening.

Since my Mabe cooker done broke and I don’t have an oven, we are resorting to our old “tried and tested” methods again.  Back to the Dutch oven and cooking over coals.  We had a stash of Fray Bento meat pies from British Foods Belize so we decided to cook them traditional style.  They puffed up very nicely (a lot better than the conventional oven) and they are a little burnt since we haven’t cooked like this for  a while.  These were a nice Sunday afternoon treat.  Also, the fire kept the bugs away for a while which was a welcome break.

Dutch Oven Pie.

This is a vegetable that grows on a vine which we have planted up the side fencing of the Duckie Zen coop.  The best way to describe them is that they taste like firm, little cucumbers but they have to be cooked.  They are growing prolifically with all the duckie fertilising so we are harvesting a basket of these each day.  I’ve mostly been steaming or putting them into soups and stews.  This vegetable is called tindali (a vegetable of Indian origin)and was obtained from the Spice Farms in Toledo (courtesy of Dr Mathew).

Tindali.

Oh, and it’s Mango Season again!  This is the chance to stuff yourself with Mango everyday…it’s great.  There should be a Mango Festival down here at this time of the year; it is definitely worth celebrating!

A while back I tried to make some home-made senbei (Japanese rice crackers).  I used ordinary glutinous rice flour because that was all I could find.  The final result was that they were chewy (still tasted good) but not the usual crunchiness that you would expect from these type of crackers.  After discussing with Gnome (and reading Wiki entries) we realised that the Mochiko flour that is traditionally used is cooked (not raw) rice that has been dehydrated and then ground into a fine flour which then gives the crunchy quality to the food.  So you can’t get Mochiko flour for love nor money in Belize (!) so Gnome says that when we get really bored (ie. during the rainy days when we can’t get out) he will help me make the flour.  Watch this space…it will probably take about 72 hours to make the flour by hand!

Home-made Senbei.
Home-made Senbei.

Keep well everyone and keep on going despite the weather!! Well, we’ll keep on going because we like to think that we are cool and tough…Ha-Ha!!