This one is an update on our gosling (goosie) situation. Yes, I know that every-one has been waiting with bated breath for the next thrilling instalment (Ha-Ha!!). Our L’il Spaddled Goosie with the spaddled legs didn’t make it…it may have had other problems and it just keeled over one day and wouldn’t get up again. Rest in Peace my l’il sweet one in Goosie Heaven!!
Spaddled Goose.
We now have five goosies on the block and they are doing great. They are at the ugly stage at the moment (but I still think they are really adorable). Since they were getting bigger, there were over-crowding problems in piggie metropolis, so they are finally out with the duckies in the Zen coop.
The Piggies: “Phew…we can hear ourselves think again!! Yay!!”
I think the piggies are relieved now that there is some peace and quiet in their living quarters. The goosies were getting a bit too chatty and noisy…
Happy Piggies.
The goosies are having a lovely time. Here are some pictures…
I am getting them used to eating all sorts of things so that they can forage once they get out into the “real world” of the farm. Right now, I am throwing succulent mombassa grass, mango peels and food scraps at them. They also get protein rations in the form of puppy food.
This is an old picture when they were all wee…
Wee Goosies.
Now look at them….
Green Goosies Eating.
They are starting to feather:
Sitting Goosies.
Goosies by the pond:
Goosies.
Once they are fully feathered we will let them out. Meanwhile we will keep them safe inside the coop.
The other day, Gnome went into the yard and then came straight back into the house and said:
“The male turkey is sitting on the turkey eggs!”
We both went to look and sure enough he had phased out into a deep meditative state whilst sitting on 9 eggs. We made sure that the eggs were intact (which they were) but we wondered if this behaviour was a “good thing.” The Over-Lord (the male turkey) has been a bit of a scamp and has broken the eggs in the turkey nest in the past. Mama turkey (The Duchess) seemed unperturbed with it all (like it was normal for a huge 20lb turkey to sit on her eggs) and was nimbly dashing about outside looking for yummy morsels to eat.
Another Google search: Do Male Turkeys Sit On Eggs.
And sure enough there are reports that male and female turkeys “share the workload” and are known to take turns (like work shifts) to set eggs. Okay….so after reading this, we decided not to chuck the Over-Lord off the eggs!!
Awwhhh….it is actually quite nice to see the Over-Lord and the Duchess working together. She is coming out more to forage for food and I throw some corn near the nest so that she doesn’t need to go so far. He hasn’t come off for 72 hours now!! Most of the time they are sharing the nest and are sitting side by side.
How Lovely….
Male and Female Turkey Setting.
This is not a good picture because I did not want to disturb them too much. If you look very closely, they are both there. Another two weeks ago until estimated date of hatching…we’ll keep you posted.
Hello!! It’s hot , hot, hot (roasting, in fact) and then it’s raining intermittently in the afternoon and at night. I talk about the weather a lot because we are dependent on the weather in order to get projects done or not!! Anyway, here are a few photos to make you smile:
We have a little “spaddled goose.” If you are wondering what spaddle means, look at this photo. His legs are splayed out thus:
Spaddled Goose.
This may be a deformity or due to a vitamin deficiency. Anyway…another Google search on “how to fix a spaddle” and we came up with the solution of tying the legs together with dental floss. Another Accident & Emergency fix-up for Dr. Gnome!!
Spaddle Goose.
Observation is now required to see if fixing a deformity with dental floss works. We will keep you posted:
Spaddle Treated.
The rest of the goslings are thriving and doing well. They share their living quarters with the guinea pigs. They eat the same food: freshly cut grass and sorghum. In the mornings, we put the geese out to pasture by putting them in a movable wire cage. At night, back to the dorms with the piggies!
Goosies with Piggies.
Oh, and last but not least we have 9 turkey eggs under the turkey. No mix and match this time with geese eggs…we are letting her hatch her own kind this time! Countdown: 30 days!!
Hello!! On Sunday, we had a huge downpour at lunch time. We both looked at each other and said, “…the flood flies are going to come out tonight.” They usually come out at dusk in swarms, first of all around the house and when it gets dark, they come inside because they are attracted to the light. This is the nuptial flight of the termites when the queen and drones start mating and begin new colonies.
Flood Flies.
They leave a trail of wings in their path; it’s usually a devastating mess!!
Close-up Flood Flies Wings.
Not this year for us!! We fed all the animals early at 4pm and stuck a hurricane light bang in the middle of the duckie coop. We had a quickie dinner (still entails cooking but not my usual prolonged routine) , showered and were in bed by 6pm. Lights off!! The most important thing is to switch off all lights!! That way they don’t enter the house. The next morning: a few wings were scattered in the window areas but nowhere as awful as previous years! We presume also that the flood flies were attracted to the duck coop light and we hoped that the ducks took the opportunity to feast on them that night.
The flood flies usually herald the beginning of the wet season. Gnome is still busy with construction so we are trying to “get a move on.” It’s a race against time right now and once we get into July, it is usually too wet to get anything done outside. I am lining up the inside chores for wet season already. This is what Gnome’s response to my scheduling:
Hello…still in the kitchen! It’s great to “boycott” the farm now and then and refuse to descend into the dirt and wetness (yes it has been raining so now time to swap the mantra over to “wet, wet, wet” instead of “dry, dry, dry.”
Gnome says,
“You can come back to the reality of the farm in your own time my dear…”
Ahhh…I think…that is so supportive of him. But then he says cheekily:
“The grass is getting longer as we speak. And little goosies are calling out for you. Oh and there’s a jackfruit dying a super squidgy death on the veranda….”
Hmmmm. I can ignore alll duties for one more day whilst I re-charge my batteries in the kitchen. Sort of like a re-boot…
Anyway, this is one of my most favourite things that I like to do. Gather lots of food on the farm and make something good to eat. I do this everyday anyway but I am making a concerted effort to ignore anything talking, quacking, wee-weeing, mee-owing, bow-wowing or honking demands at me! 🙂
Yummy Garden Food.
Today, I have made a meal out of everything from the farm. All except the onions. Ahhh the onions…that is going to be called “Munchkin & Gnome: Plant Acre of Onions Project” and will require ingenuity on our part since it is soooo wet (there we go again with the new mantra).
Thank-you my darling duckies for the eggs; I am rather fond of them…the duckies, I mean:
My Lovely Duckies!!
The Meal of the Day! This includes onions (not ours) and aubergines, tomatoes, jalapeño peppers and duckie eggs (all ours). Oh, and thanks to Panda for his Roma tomatoes which I nicked out of his bucket! This is a great way to poach eggs…which Gnome taught me a long time ago in a land down-under: cook your dish as usual on the stove (can be anything; beans, lentils, stew, anything really) and once cooked, crack eggs on top. Place lid on pot and cook eggs, on medium heat, to desired consistency. Hard-boiled yolks require about 8 minutes; so if you want anything in between, give yourself up to this measure of time.
Monday Meal.
Okay, back to farm work tomorrow with renewed energy and inspiration…
See you today at Chocolate Festival 2017. Munchkin and Gnome (aka Casa Mascia Apothecary) will be found somewhere near the Cotton Tree Chocolate Factory selling their wares. We’ll have chocolate soaps, chocolate body scrub, copal products and lots of other goodies. Come and see us because we are taking this time to socialise and talk to people!! Otherwise you won’t see us for another year!! Come early-ish!!
It’s Sunday and we’ve still working on a million and one things. Gnome asked, “…where’s the fun??”
Oops, these blog posts are supposed to inspire other people to live a farming lifestyle like us.
Gnome’s working on the veranda, pulling out posts and putting them into holes. I tended to the animals (goosies and guinea pigs mostly) this morning and watered the 40 or so buckets in our garden. After that I potted some sage and tobacco plants. I’ve just been clearing a big mess in the old plant nursery where the old posts were located. There are all sorts of crap: some of the stuff is destined for the dump but I have to pick through it all to save the useful stuff…like buckets and planting bags. I stopped to make lunch (shitake and bitter gourd soup with lentils….still have to eat well despite being busy). And Gnome’s still sweating away outside knocking things together.
And now I have to pack some soap and products and….oh, and then there is the Chocolate Festival to prepare for next weekend….
So, I think that it’s time for an afternoon break. I have to keep in mind that life on a farm comes in cycles of busy and quiet and there’s no in-between!! The important thing is to pull yourself out of it once in while and remember, we’re supposed to be having fun!!
Okay, goosie time!! Look, the yellow wellies work…the goosies think that we are one of them!!
There should a Farming 101 course or a Dummy’s Guide to Farming. We sure could do with this since neither of us grew up on farms. Now, this is a funny story that happened this week…which makes me wish that we had farming classes at school that taught you the basics…like how to pull a wooden post out of a 3 foot hole without doing your back in.
Gnome is currently working on building a back veranda and needs to erect 8 sturdy rose-wood posts, 10 feet tall, 3 feet into the ground. He’s dug the holes (oooh, that started the sore back) and now he has to re-locate posts into this new area. Now, these posts have been used for different things around the farm and need to be dug out of their holes. The posts are about 200kgs (400lbs) in weight so it’s no joke! I saw Gnome perform the heroics of removing one post (ooooooh…sore, sore back!!) and I promptly told him to stop before he did any silly damage to himself.
So we decided to take a break (cup of tea and a Kit-Kat) and do a Google search on “how to lift posts out of holes.”
Something called a “Farm Jack” came up. We both looked at the description and it suddenly dawned us that this was the exact piece of invention that we were looking for! Where had it been in all these 13 years of farming when we were painstakingly trying to dig posts out of holes…
And then we realised that there was a piece of equipment that looked exactly like a farm jack lying rotten and neglected, dying a horrible death under our house. It had been left as a “can you keep this I’ll be back in 2 weeks” piece of equipment which we have now kept for 10 years waiting for this guy to come back who will never come back.
We both looked at each other and said at the same time,
“Oh we have a farm jack!! Is that what it is! “
All those years of keeping that piece of equipment and having no idea what it was!! Too Funny, right? Or should we just feel very silly and sheepish…
Ancient Farm Jack
Anyway, Gnome took the hunk of metal junk out and with a pair of pliers, some diesel and a wire brush proceeded to clean it up. Upon closer scrutinisation, the original two pins had been replaced, in a haphazard way, with a nail at the top and a half broken screw at the bottom. Gnome attempted to “fix” the farm jack and with some magic and a piece of wire with a metal key-holder managed to get the thing working. It wasn’t perfect since the bottom pin was broken so he used a wire to lever the pin back and forth. It worked…it actually worked…well, we got a post an inch out of the hole before the make-shift lower pin gave way and broke. Arrrghhhh!!! It was looking so promising.
Farm Jack Quick Fix
Well, it’s not fixable now and the broken pin is stuck so can not be removed and replaced. It is such a shame because if it wasn’t for that, it would work!
Now to look for a farm jack in Belize. Not easy. We tried looking for one in Toledo, Belize and the likes of it has never been seen or heard of before in this district. We must search further afield…
Work has temporarily come to a standstill on our farm due to a sore back and difficulty procuring equipment. 🙂
We need to catch a healthy-choice rat that comes into our kitchen at night. He eats only organic, home-grown vegetables, fruit and grains. He can even sniff out this fine food through plastic wrap and munches through to get to my choice food. He turns his nose up at anything in a flashy package including ramen noodles, biscuits and sweets. What a discerning rat!
Tomato.
Okay, so I was getting fed up with the rat taking out all my sapodillas, tomatoes and other fruits in season. I was waking up to a gnawed piece of fruit in the basket every day. It was really frustrating because I was waiting for the fruit to ripen and the rat was getting them when they were perfect to eat. You can imagine how self-righteous I was feeling…all this hard work in the garden and the rat gets it!! That’s not right!!
I proceeded to store all my good food in closed baskets and then got the rat trap out for Gnome to set up. He asked me for some food for bait and I got out some cheese. He gave me a funny look because it came out of a packet. He looked like he wanted to say something but then felt that he better not.
I didn’t know what his problem was…don’t you catch rats with cheese?? I’ve seen it in cartoons.
Well the next morning, I found the traps empty still with the cheese bait. Gnome had accidentally left an extra piece of cheese on a plate (in plain sight) on the kitchen table…that had not been taken either. It was clear that the rat did not feel enticed by the cheese.
Gnome just looked at me…you know with that knowing look: I didn’t tell you so but you should no better look.
Hmmm…I really don’t want to bait the rat with my good stuff but it looks like I have no choice. Oh dear…the bait will have to come from my lovely garden harvest…
Oh what a relief! We had a really lovely heavy rain early this morning and a nice sleep in until 7am because it was so cool. The last few weeks we have been getting up at 4am to start at 6am which is the coolest time of the morning. It’s been really exhausting and the heat has been relentless.
Anyway, our goosie with the broken leg is recovering. It is actually able to weight bear and managing to limp around goosie hospital. It’s getting a bit lonely so I am allowing 1 to 2 hour visits from fellow goslings (one at a time). It gets a bit over-crowded with all of them twittering , messing around with food and pooping. Over-night stays are not allowed…way too much carrying on…Munchkin and Gnome don’t take kindly to interrupted sleep!
Oor Goosie!
Operation: Get broody turkey sitting on goose eggs unfortunately failed. The Duchess (aka Female turkey) was a champion and sat the thirty days (and more) but none of the eggs hatched. We’ve read that goose eggs need to be turned on a daily basis (by the goose or by human) but once the duchess was sitting, there was no budging her. We thought that it was just best to let her do her Mama thing and wait it out. So in conclusion, it doesn’t look like turkeys can set goose eggs because they are too heavy for them to be turned. Oh well, we tried!
Sitting Turkey.
The other baby goslings are doing normal baby gosling things like twittering, pecking at each other, eating grass and pooping. We take them for supervised walks at the pond area and sit with them while they do their goosie thing. The other day, Gnome’s mum phoned us and said,
“How are my grand-children?”
The grand-kids are doing very well:
Goosie Walks.
Home schooling has started because we want to make them into proper little scholars…unfortunately they keep on falling asleep every-time we open the book…perhaps we should review the goosie curriculum?
