Hope is a good thing. I had made the decision to leave my duckies alone this year and not bother them about laying and nesting. I opened the coop and told them that they were free to walk around and do whatever pleased them. I then quickly stuck a greenhouse in the coop…thinking: aha, since you are not going to be around, I will move my tiny plant nursery off the veranda into your big, spacious coop!!
Greenhouse in Duck Coop.
Anyway, guess what happens next? A few days later, Gnome spotted a duck emerging surreptitiously from under a wood pile. He said,
“Quick Munchkin…check that space out…”
I quickly got down on my hands and knees to peer into a tiny, squashed-up space under a wood pile and this is what I found:
Secret Duckie Nest.
They are laying and starting a nest. Yes…there is hope. 😉
We have been a bit unlucky with duckies this year. We had about 6 girls initially and one by one we lost them through some pesky possums early in the year. I managed to incubate a few eggs and had a few duckies to mother…sadly, none of them survived either…some were too weak and I actually stood on one too. I know, I know, I was so devastated that I couldn’t even write that in a post! Ducklings have a very erratic way of walking ie. they don’t walk in a straight line AND Munchkins have an erratic way of walking…so, put the two together and it might be a recipe for disaster! Oh dear, no duckies this year:
Duckie.
Anyway, we have ended up with a lone surviving duck and three drakes. The last two months, we attempted to isolate the female with one drake in the coop. They had the whole infinity pond to themselves and access to all- they- can eat corn and protein buffet. Despite all this pampering, duckie was not laying any eggs (or was there a snake getting them, I am not sure?). We felt that she was lonely and unhappy and needed some female company to perk up. To add to all this stress, during this confinement period, the drake kept on escaping through invisible holes in the coop to chase after the other two drakes! Yes, oh what fun!! It just wasn’t working out at all…
Duckies.
So, we decided to seek out our Duckie Exchange guy in Punta Gorda. We have known this guy for as long as we have had duckies…so, probably about 14 years. He owns ducks and occasionally, he goes through difficult duckie times like ours; when this happens he usually seeks us out for a pair of duckies to start again. Over the years, we have sought each other out in duckie dearth times. This time it was our turn. He said that he was happy to spare a a few for us even although he had suffered quite a loss recently. That was really nice of him. Whilst talking, he told us that he had lost his only male goose to the dog. As he told us, his single female goose walked by…she was so tame and cute and she had a funny, limping gait. He explained to us that when she was a gosling, a crab nipped off all her toes so that was why she walked in a teeter-totter sort of way. Anyway, we thanked him for his help and said that we would return to pick up the ducks.
Afterwards, Gnome and I talked and agreed that since we had always helped each other out, we would give the guy a male goose in exchange for the duckies. It is coming up to goosie breeding season again and the fights will start with the September solstice. There is one particular male goosie that gets the brunt of it all and we end up throwing him into the duck coop for protection. I am not sure why the other males go for him because he is very fine-looking and he is a fighter too. Gnome and I agreed that he would probably be happier in a new home despite our reluctance to let go of our beloved goosie.
Anyway, that Duckie-Goosie exchange took place about two weeks ago. Every time, we are in town, we slow down in front of the house to catch a glimpse of our dear goosie. He looks a lot happier walking proudly about with his new lady and it looks like he is the new boss of the yard! Oh I know, we are suckers for happy endings…let us also hope for a happy ending for the duckies because we want more of these little cuties!!
Gnome has charged me with the task of making a journey ration (cake) in the old-fashioned sense of the word. He is looking for a staple that can be used for journeys or simply as a food ration. It must be balanced with carbohydrate, protein, fat, vitamins and minerals. Also, it should be storable at room temperature and have a reasonably long shelf life. Taste is also an important criteria! Oh, and I have to try to use ingredients that I can find in Belize or better still, food that is harvested from our farm.
Since we have had a few rainy days, I have had time to experiment: I am using the Italian Panforte as a basis for my recipe. Nowadays, Panforte is eaten at Christmas time and can contain almonds, citrus peel, dried fruits and spices tightly packed and bound together with a mixture of flour (very little) and honey. Traditionally, panforte was used as a “journey cake” for soldiers during long marches.
Since I don’t have an oven any-more, I have had to start the recipe from scratch and find a way to cook it on a cast iron skillet over a charcoal stove. The first challenge is to get a basic recipe that actually works using this baking modality.
The first batch contained the following: Toasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds, dried jackfruit, lime peel with cassava starch, honey, jackfruit wine and brown sugar to bind. I flavoured it with clove and cinnamon. Here is a picture; they look very Christmasy!
Munchkin Journey Ration.
So far, so good. The rations baked well and were very tasty. I calculated these basic rations to be about 350 kcals each so on an active day, we would need to consume 6 of these and on a sedentary day, 3 of them. Now that I have the basic recipe, I will be working on the following additions and modifications:
Extra protein possibly in the form of beef jerky/ ground ora pro nobis leaves.
Vitamins and minerals from dried, ground chaya leaves.
Addition of a variety of dried fruits from the farm (suriname cherry, mango, pineapple, sapodilla and whatever I can get my hands on!)
Addition of a variety of citrus peel from the farm including lemon, calamondin and grapefruit for taste.
More exotic nut or nut-like food that we grow eg. cashew nuts, malabar chestnut and even coconuts.
Cacao beans (nibs)!
Oooohhh, I am sure I will think of more things! It starts to get very fun and exciting to boldly go into the creative unknown!
This is still a work in progress and I am happy to keep on experimenting whenever the mood takes me. So far, Gnome has been pleased with my efforts…I know this because he has eaten all my ration bars!! In addition to this, I have made 100kcal truffle rations which can be eaten in between normal meals when we need a little bit of extra energy for physical work on the farm. This lot has been polished off too…also a winner!!
Small Food Rations.
Okay, I will keep you posted on my Munchkin Journey Rations!!
Since I have been stuck indoors with the rains, I decided to take some time to tidy up the kitchen/pantry. The kitchen always looks like a bomb has hit it…well, that is because I am always in the middle of cooking! Gnome however, would (beg to differ) and say that I was just plain messy and then I would shout back at him and demand a bigger kitchen. He would argue back and say,
“…oh, so you want a bigger mess!!”
Cheeky Bugger!! All of this is said in jest of course and this is Munchkin and Gnome friendly banter whilst cooped inside a house on rainy days!
Anyway, the other day, while cleaning my kitchen shelves, I come across a whole trail of gnawed teabags and I followed the tea leaf trail to this…
Rat Eating Through Plastic.
I was flabbergasted when I saw this…a rat (I think) had systematically gnawed around the plastic container, like a can-opener, and stopped half-way. It didn’t even get to the food inside! I showed this to Gnome and he said,
“…the rat must have stopped mid-way when it ran out of caffeine!”
I pictured a caffeine-high rat running amok in the kitchen. What a funny picture! Anyway, after seeing the razor-sharp capabilities of an intrepid rat, I promptly put all food away in glass or metal containers. No plastic. I also put away the teabags. In the evening, I had an after-thought and said to Gnome,
“…maybe I should leave one teabag out for the poor rat…he might go into withdrawal…”
I have been starting to look a bit more into my Chinese heritage since my father passed away recently. To be honest, I never really thought that much about it and usually, if anyone asked, I would say I was Cantonese for easiness sake. Actually, I am not Cantonese and I don’t even speak Cantonese. I am Hakka….well, you are probably thinking that you are none the wiser being told this information…anyway, it is significant because Hakka people were traditionally farmers and within their social structure, it was the women that worked the fields (subsistence farming) whilst the men worked in the urban areas (for money). Interesting that the Hakka were the only Chinese that did not practice foot binding…probably because the women had to work outside.
Anyway…my convoluted introduction was just to add another layer of interest…maybe Munchkin is going full circle and getting in touch with her ancestral roots?!! 😉
Okay, more pictures:
More and More Charcoal.
Gnome has been pruning trees (probably about 3 to 4 times a week) and gathering the wood to make charcoal. The previous charcoal container was over-flowing so he had to make it larger and sloping to allow better access.
The tyre garden is working out well especially when the ground is so boggy right now. We are stashing taro in between the tyres in the hope that the geese overlook them…so far, so good. The geese have a very healthy appetite when it comes to roots like taro and we are careful to hide them from their plain sight.
Tyre Garden.
We are also developing a grove of pitahaya (dragon fruit) on tyres. The cactus is trained to grow up the posts and once they reach the top and start dangling…which usually takes about 9 months…will produce fruit. So far, we have about twelve of these and I am aiming for about 20 or more plants.
Planted Pitahaya.
The tyres are filled with seaweed (courtesy of Panda…thanks!). Right now, with full on rainy season, it takes about a week for the salt to wash out of the seaweed…once washed out, the cactus is planted and attached to the post with bindweed vine.
Yeah! We have managed to keep the grass down this year which is definitely progress for us! This helps because we can actually look around to make plans for the farm. Despite the weather being on/off or sunny/rainy ie. can’t make up its mind, we are in good spirits because everything is proceeding at a reasonable pace. We have had a whole week cooped up inside the teeny house because of wet, boggy ground and coalescing ponds and I finally managed to get out today to take a few pictures.
Here is a giant toad that resides in the duck coop; seems to be quite happy to jump around with the ducks and sit in the dinner bowl.
Fat Toad.
We had a good harvest of Malabar Chestnut…the cultivated Chinese variety which tastes like chestnuts. Don’t get this one confused with the wild variety here in Belize, also known as provision fruit, that gives “edible” seeds; yes, edible in that it isn’t poisonous but inedible because it tastes like cardboard. Believe me, I’ve tried and I would definitely categorise the wild chestnuts as survival food! Anyway, I digress…I wanted to show you pictures of our harvest:
Malabar Chestnut Pods.
I think that you may only recognise these if you are Asian and you are used to buying packets of Chinese soup ingredients that only have Chinese writing on them. I am used to seeing these seeds in the dried form; the fresh form is very nutty and succulent. We like them so much that we have decided to plant another forty trees; they are especially good for growing in wet, swampy areas so they are perfect for many areas of our farm.
Malabar Chestnut.
Oh and look! The peanuts are still going. This is Day 93; another 27 days to go. We have had a few occasions when we thought that the whole field would get flooded or washed away with the rains but it has managed to battle through. We are very pleased with the peanuts; the straw like stuff in between the rows are cut vetivir.
Peanuts Day 93.
Last but not least, it is bamboo shoot time. I did not harvest last year because we were too busy. I said to Gnome this year that I was happy to harvest about five of them; that will make about 5 gallons which will last the whole year. For the first time, we are proceeding at a pace that allows us to catch the cycles on the farm. Usually, we are behind schedule and trying to catch up. Phew, it has taken 14 years to get to this stage…Ha-Ha!!
It is full on rainy season and it is absolutely pouring down. Every morning we have been waking up to thunderstorms and torrential rain. Water is flowing in tiny little streams on our farm and we haven’t been able to get out to work for a full week. This morning, Gnome said, “…oh that’s interesting…the weather report said it was going to be bright and sunny with a 1% chance of rain.” Well, looks like we got the 1% or the weather report is totally, wildly inaccurate…I suspect the second. 😉
Anyway, this is the best time for pumpkins, gourds and all manner of curcubits. The water allows the them to swell up into humongous fruit…and, I think this is the best part…those beetles that like to drill holes into all my tasty, delectable vegetables can’t get out to burrow holes because of the rains! Ahhh, of course that is the silver-lining cloudy thing that Hallmark people like to point out to me. 😉
These are some bottle gourds harvested from our farm. We eat most of them young but I have left three of them to mature to use as vessels to store some of our home-made wine.
Bottle Gourd Harvest.
We had our first breadfruit harvest this year; it has taken three years for the trees to start baring. We probably have harvested about 100 from three young trees.
Breadfruit TreeBreadfruit
We are eating the fruit as a potato substitute; of course, as all Belizeans will testify, breadfruit is best fried in oil:
We like to cut them into “chip” shapes (easier to eat with chopsticks!) but most people around here have them as half or quarter wedges.
Fried Breadfruit Chips.
Gnome cooked a breadfruit stew with his usual home-made wine, tomato sauce Italian thing. It was very good:
Chopped Breadfruit.Breadfruit Stew.
Oh, and Gnome has been sticking coke bottles around coconut trees…what is he up to?
It’s about time to write again. The goosies are calling me through space and time…they’ve been squeaking and squawking at me in their usual relentless way. Oh, and the grass keeps on growing! So I must keep on writing my exciting posts about geese and grass! Lately, we have had massive rains punctuated by one or two days of sun; we are still running around the farm doing whatever is possible in this wet weather when the opportunity presents itself.
We have been very fortunate with farm harvests during this rainy season and we are very thankful for them. Plenty of akee:
Akee Harvest.
We really enjoy the texture and taste of akee; it has a unique fatty, buttery taste. I would even venture to say that I prefer them to avocadoes. We also had the fortune of wild paddy straw mushrooms coming up on one of our vegetable beds.
Paddy Straw Mushrroms.
Here is a dish of paddy straw mushrooms cooked in olive oil, Gnome pasta stuff (yay! he is still cooking) and akee. Yes, we are still eating really well off the farm:
Paddy Straw Mushrooms and Akee.
Oh and look at this…in between this huge abundance of food, Gnome still dug up beetle larvae, brought it into the house and asked me rather politely if I would like to share some food with him,
“…eh, Munchkin….would you be willing to eat some grubs…”
Beetle Grubs.
He wasn’t joking. This comes from his old bush tucker days in the Northern Territory, Australia when he used to forage around and eat witchity grubs and berries (as Gnomes do). I was a bit scared about eating these wiggly things live so I said that I could coat them in egg and breadcrumbs and fry them in oil. At this point, I started looking very closely at the writhing grubs and felt (would you believe it!) sorry for them. I exclaimed,
“…it’s a bit cruel to chuck these poor things in boiling hot oil, though!”
Next thing I know, Gnome is having a conversation with me about how to practically approach this apparent mental stumbling block:
“…well, I suppose you could parboil them first…or, you could chop their heads off first…”
I bailed out at this point and said,
“…look Gnome, I would eat these in a survival situation but the truth of the matter is that we have plenty of food on the farm right now. Why don’t I give them to Duckie? “
He didn’t really have a choice because I was out of the house before he could say anything. Sure enough, Duckie had a real gourmet treat of beetle larvae…she gobbled them up like there was no tomorrow.
It’s been a while since I have written. I thought of quoting from the Bible or writing some poem about a weary traveller resting at long last after a long journey or even quoting a wry Mark Twain quote. I can’t find anything. I think that grief has no words and they are best left unspoken…because no-one knows your heart except yourself. A post left blank with no words would be more appropriate…silence to represent love and respect… but alas, I should speak a few words. My dear father passed away recently and I have been in mourning. May he Rest in Peace.
Hello there, just a little update to let you know that we are still around. I had a right hand injury so I have not been able to type (and do much for that matter…it’s driving me crazy). I was drying a glass and it broke and cut into the base of my thumb. Luckily Gnome was ready with his suture kit and did a perfect little stitching job. I have to say that I put on a brave face and didn’t flinch at all. I got 6 stitches!! I should have got a lollipop as a reward!!
Anyway, my hand is getting better and I am starting to get more function to it. Gnome has been wonderful and has been doing all the cooking and washing. It’s actually nice to have some home-cooked Italian food! I’ll write more when my hand is less swollen!! We are both doing fine and we have had some fine weather lately (it starting clearing up after the huge rain last week) so Gnome has been out and about cleaning up the farm.
