Category Archives: Belize

Bad Weather!

July 10, 2018 Munchkin

Of course, as always, when I have some story to tell you, I don’t have any pictures to go with it. Such is life…when it is actually happening, you usually don’t have a camera on hand! Anyway, this story started with torrential rains last night at about 9pm; there was thunder and then the occasional yelp from a scared goosie. But, then there was one incredible clap of thunder…one big goosie yelp…one quick buzzy electrical noise…and then the power went out.

When we woke up this morning, we still had no electricity so Gnome went out to look at the transformer. He reported back,

“…the transformer is making a crrcrrrcrrr noise…”

Yes, very technical; I think he was trying to mimic a crackling noise.

Okay, so then we phoned the electricity company to tell them that we had no power and probably the transformer was hit by lightning. There was a bit of confusion over San Felipe, Toledo and San Felipe, Orange Walk (which is the opposite end of the country) and the colour of my house and the colour of my gate. At the end of the phone conversation, Gnome said that he was scared that the correct information didn’t get through and that they might be sending out an emergency team in Orange Walk looking for a green gate. So, at 8am, we decided to drive into town to report the fault directly to the Punta Gorda office.

When we got to the junction (Jacinto) to get onto the main road, there were a couple of parked cars and a whole load of people with bicycles. The river went up with the over-night rain and had flooded the junction road. As we approached, there was a guy blowing up an inflatable dinghy and numerous little children running about with multi-coloured rubber boots…but none dared to traverse the flooded road yet so we couldn’t tell how deep it was.

After about 15 minutes, a neighbour from San Felipe, driving a similar truck to ours, pitched up and parked behind us. He had a chat with us and he decided to wait too. Meanwhile, a few very brave motorists traversed the road but you could see that the water was still high up against the car bumpers. Gnome looked at me a few times and told me that he wasn’t going to risk it (and by the way…we will wait until our neighbour goes so that we can see if his truck makes it first…). Meanwhile, our neighbour was, I think, thinking the same thing and waiting for us to go first!!

Okay, after about an hour we ended up going first! And our neighbour followed with a chuckle and shouted, “let’s go!!”

The water was probably about 2 feet high and we tried to keep straight…it was actually quite scary because the water swayed our two tonne truck from side to side. I prayed to God to help us traverse safely and we finally reached the end of the road after about 100 yards (metres). Thank the Lord! We were both catching our breath…Phew…Made It!!…and at the end of the road, there was a woman waving us to get out of the way so that she could take a selfie at the flooded road! First time I have seen a selfie stick in this neck of the woods…sorry to say, they look really silly!! 😉

First stop in town was the office and there was a nice, helpful young man at the desk. He told me that my phone call did get through and that a team of guys had been dispatched to our residence. He said,

“…they should be there by now…let me just check…”

He came back to me and said with a smile,

“Oh, they are stuck at the junction right now with the flood and waiting for the water to go down…”

When I heard this, I started fretting over whether his guys could get across the flooded road. He looked at me and smiled again,

“…don’t worry about our guys!! you should be worried about whether you can get back home…”

He did have a point. I thanked him for his assistance and left worrying about whether we could get back home as it was starting to rain heavily again.

We did a few town things, stopped off for a quickie breakfast (not sure when we would eat again if we got stuck midway) and then headed back home quick smart. It was still raining!! On reaching the junction, it was surprisingly okay and the water was down to about a foot. From that we surmised that the electricity guys got through and had sorted out our electricity problem already.

On arriving home, the transformer was not making a funny noise any more and it appeared that the meter was back on. However, there was still no electricity! Gnome reckoned that since we assumed that the electricity guys had come already, all that was left was for us to replace the fuses in the fuse box. The only fuses we had were these ones…that had beeswax and honey smothered all over them…

Gnome proceeded to mess around and poke about in the fuse box. Meanwhile he told me to phone the electrician…I couldn’t find his phone number so I phoned a neighbour hoping to get the phone number; they said that they didn’t have it but would phone a friend to get the phone number of the brother of the electrician! I know…What Shenanigans!! Anyway, I had forgotten that this particular neighbour was a retired electrician (could have asked him for help) and he decided to drive by to see if we needed any help. He came by and spied Gnome poking about in the fuse box and reprimanded him immediately…soooo glad he did that! He said,

“…you can’t just poke about with live fuses…anyway, you don’t just take the fuses out with your hands…there are devices designed for that!!”

Gnome said “Sorry!!” immediately and said that he was ignorant to such devices existing.

At the same time, the electricity guys turned up and informed us that they didn’t come first thing because of the flood and did another job instead. They effortlessly replaced a fuse on the transformer and off they went…very, very quickly…it was nearly lunch-time (10 minutes to noon).

Alls well that ends well!! We have electricity again…but what a palaver!! Thanks every-one for helping out and making it into a funny story to tell!!

Belize, Farming

Back and Forth…

July 6, 2018 Munchkin

The weather has been back and forth for the last month or so. We had sunny-ish weather for the last 5 days so we went out and cleared up a bit more on the farm. Gnome has been clearing trees at the pond area and I have been wheel-barrowing the wood back to the charcoal area. It’s hard work for both of us but it keep us both fit and healthy. Oh, and yes, we have filled up our charcoal store so we are going to build another concrete block storage…

Anyway, we have just done a run of work and today it started raining early morning and has kept on going. This seems like the typical July weather when you can’t get out at all! We had planned to go into town but decided to cancel because the rain is coming down in buckets! We both went outside to have a look and there are pools of water forming everywhere and the water is flowing.

Gnome saw a goose sitting in a big puddle fast asleep; when he called out to tell me, the goose woke up so I couldn’t get a picture of it…well, here is the goose just waking up from a nap:

This is just after a morning of rain:

There is water everywhere:

Anyway, I know I haven’t been writing so this is a post to let you know that we are still here and we are doing our Munchkin and Gnome stuff as usual!

Belize

A Quickie!

June 28, 2018 Munchkin

Hello!! We had about two weeks of really good weather (blue skies and sunshine) and now we are back to rainy weather. Today, it looks like an all day rain so we can’t go out. It is definitely getting very wet from three days of rain; puddles (ponds) forming and geese splashing about. Lots of froggies too and frog spawn in all our buckets.

Here are a few pictures from the farm. Not really much to say except that we will probably be doing inside activities for the month of July.

I had written before that we were trying to grow a big patch of mint at the water tank area which gets really wet. The mint has taken well and is spreading with the rains:

Some birds nest cup fungus. It looks very pretty but unfortunately you can’t eat it or make birds nest soup soup out of it!

The “Brain” is flowering; just in case you don’t remember the “Brain,” here is a picture; it is also called elephant foot yam.

The flowers are very interesting; they look like mushrooms:

Okay, have a great day and stay out of the rain!!

Belize, Food

Trouble With Jackfruit!

June 23, 2018 Munchkin

Trouble with jackfruit or rather should it be Trouble with Munchkin? We have been getting so much jackfruit, I have been needing to process about 4 of them at a time every 2 to 3 days. You will only understand how I feel if you have ever needed to clean a jackfruit yourself. I don’t really want to complain because it is food but boy, is it a lot of work!! The other day, I went a bit mad on Gnome because it was so maddening and that’s how mad I was because I had done two and I had two more to go and I couldn’t take it anymore!!

Anyway, he tried to be diplomatic and told me to leave the last two jackfruit alone and do them the next day. He has his own work to do too and it isn’t like he is just sitting around doing nothing so it’s hard to get maddening mad!!

The next day, I tried it again with an all-new, well-behaved “thank the lord for our daily bread” Munchkin attitude. I am leading you into a cloudy story with a silver-lining if you haven’t noticed already….

So far, the jackfruit that I have been preparing are all the firm variety so they hard to cut through with a knife (blisters on the hands), the core is difficult to cut and each single piece of fruit requires to be pried off with the stubby fingers of a Munchkin. Arrrgh!!!!

Oh and don’t forget the boiling of the seeds and peeling each seed one by one! Oh and don’t forget the wine-making! It is a whole day affair.

Who said farm life was about rainbows and unicorns (what unicorns??). 😉

Okay, so I am so far in a good mood, thanking the lord…keeping the good mood going…and onto the fourth jackfruit.

And guess what? It is the biggest one…it is humongous and I am expecting a two hour job. It cuts like butter, flops open, the spine pops out and the fruit pop out too. What an amazing revelation…this last jackfruit (from the same tree??) is completely different and has a soft, cotton-like texture. It is sooooo easy to prepare and I did it in half the time. Afterwards, I told Gnome about it and we realised that when we planted the jackfruit “tree” we stuck five seeds into into the ground. Two of them germinated, grew up and intertwined giving the appearance of one tree hence the reason for two different varieties seeming to appear on a single tree.

This is the other type of jackfruit which is soft in texture. If you like it, you would describe it as buttery; if you don’t like it, you would say it was snotty. Nonetheless, easier to clean and if you are making wine, the texture is not an issue. On the whole, it was easy peasy compared to preparing the other type.

Cotton-like, soft variety:

Okay moral of the story. Stay in a good mood and something good (donum bonum/ good gift) can happen. Well, that’s Munchkin and Gnome philosophy and it works if you do it. It makes sense but harder to stay in a good mood (all the time) in reality. Got to persist though….

Belize, Farming

Lessons With Goosies.

June 22, 2018 Munchkin

If anyone has been following our posts, they will know that we unfortunately lost all our guinea pigs to a pesky possum (that we subsequently made into curry possum) and as a result of this, we lost our crèche for the goslings.

So, this year I ended up with the task of rearing the goosies from Day 0 to adolescence (3 to 6 months). Note that Goosie Mothers are usually not the best of mothers and they can be quite haphazard in their approach. That’s why I volunteered to raise the geese.

I thought that it was useful to note the differences in rearing the goslings personally and the lessons that I have learned from these last 6 months. Yes, goosie breeding/hatching season has come to a close and the reign of wrathful, goosie terror has ended. 🙂

Goosie Lessons.

The goslings, this year, were raised on high protein (combo dog food and cooked black beans). Their food dish was continuously topped up so that they had access to food continuously for the first 3 weeks. I had to teach each one to eat the food initially by sticking its beak in the food and tapping on the food dish with my finger (to mimic the beak of a mother goose). There was one batch of goslings that refused to “take” to the food and I had to end up giving them milk. That was a horrible experience because they splashed and sploshed about in milk covering themselves from head to tail; it got quite disgusting and smelly and I am not sure if they even got to drink any of it!

At day 7 (later when they got too horribly noisy and smelly it was shifted to day 3) they were moved from the fish tank in the house to a welded wire cage outside. At this point, as-well as the usual food, they were introduced to all manner of greens so that they could get used to eating the variety of weeds around the house. I noticed that although well protected, the cage afforded the little geese the opportunity to observe their environment (ie. lots of rowdy, trouble-making adult geese) without feeling threatened. This is actually a significant point to make because the guinea-pig raised geese were kept in shallow concrete houses and when they were set free around the farm, they were very easily upset and frightened; so much so that it took them six months to find the confidence to graze away from the house area.

After day 21, they were big enough to be transferred into a metal movable cage. They were allowed to roam free during the day and were herded into the cage in the evening with a big bowl of high protein food.

After about day 35, they were allowed to roam free without needing to go into the cage at night. By this time, they were about the size of a chicken (4 to 5lbs) and could fend for themselves…even get nasty with the drake. Their weights were consistently increasing with continuous grazing. I still gave them protein titbits in the morning and evening to get them into a routine of friendly, rumbustious behaviour.

I kept a diary with food weights and goosie weekly weights. With each batch, I was actually able to improve on weight gain and towards the end, I was able to double weight gain every 7 days. Thanks to Gnome for encouraging me to be more scientific and methodical; this has allowed me to improve, tweak and make adjustments to turn my geese into healthy, happy birds.

Conclusion:

The new Munchkin Mum method has been positive and yielded better results than the previous guinea pig rearing. This year’s geese are a lot bigger, friendlier and happier. A happy goose goes a long way! The energy and time that I put into the goslings was definitely worth it and I gained a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction from the whole experience. So much so, that I am ready to do it again next year.

Amusing, Belize, Construction

What’s A J Roller Anyway??

June 20, 2018 Munchkin 2 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, Gnome gave me the mission to find a J Roller in Belize. My first question was,

“What’s a J Roller when it’s at home?”

So he told me to look up pictures in Amazon and read the descriptions. I am not sure how he came up with the tool name because he had never mentioned it before…he probably read instructions somewhere…he is the only person that I know that reads instruction manuals with great interest and enjoyment.

A J Roller is a “J” shaped roller made of rubber. It is used to aid the adhesion of surfaces with a sticky underside…you basically roll it back and forth on a surface to make it stick down smoothly. They can be used for adhesive tiles which is what we had for a new project. Aha…he read the back of the box! 😉

The task of looking for an uncommonly used tool in Belize can be quite a challenge. I started my mission in the hardware stores in Punta Gorda.

When I said,

“I am looking for a J Roller.”

I would usually get a perplexed look and,

“…what’s that??”

So, then I had to modify my first question and say,

“Do you have a J Roller? It looks like a paint roller but it is made of rubber.”

(This did not work because the shop assistant would automatically turn the conversation to paint rollers being made of foam in Belize).

Okay, so I had to further change my method of questioning and point to their formica counter tops and say:

“…what do you use to stick that (formica) onto the countertop.”

These were the answers that I got from a few hardware stores (I feel like I was conducting some sort of survey on how to ask silly questions and how to get silly answers back!!):

“…errh…you just smooth it out with your hands…”

and:

“…you get a big old smooth stick…”

and:

“…what???”

Hmmmm…needless to say, I wasn’t getting anyway. So, I asked for Panda’s assistance since he was driving out to the big city. He said that he even printed out a picture of the J Roller and showed it to a few hardware stores. No luck…at least they knew of the existence of the tool but did not think that it was of much use hence the reason they did not stock said tool.

Okay…Okay…so, we had to do it the Munchkin and Gnome way. Get a marble rolling pin and use that instead. No shortage of rolling pins in Belize!! When I presented the rolling pin to Gnome he said with a smile,

“…well, if it doesn’t work, we can always roll out some nice pasta noodles with it…”

Well, it does the job!! So, if you are looking for a J Roller in Belize, try the kitchen section for a heavy rolling pin instead!!

Amusing, Belize, Farming

Mosquito Time!

June 15, 2018 Munchkin

I am writing this post to remind myself (again) that June is mosquito time. Well at least that is when it starts…but when does it finish? Does it finish? Anyway, all I know right now is that is pretty horrible and we are forever being chased by swarms of mosquitoes. Arrrghhh…moan of the day done!

Anyway, on the upside, we have had a few days straight of good weather (of the non-rain type) so we have been out on the farm doing our stuff. So, what stuff have we done?

We have starting laying down the cardboard between our peanuts to soak up all the excess water from the rain (plus it stops the weeds coming up so it is a double bonus).

Ooooh…..another picture for Joyce:

Don’t they look healthy and green….and the okra are coming up nicely in between the first two rows of peanut.

It is jackfruit time again. All of these fruits are beautiful and are about 50lbs in weight each. Thank-you, thank-you…what a lovely, generous tree. Our sun-drying (what sun??) of the seeds did not work and they turned into a funny, fuzzy orangey moldy monster so we stopped doing that. We have now decided to make miso made from jackfruit seed.

Anything else. Yes, I washed and waxed the truck. Most people would be asking me why I am bothering to put this piece of insignificant detail down. Well, it is because we are known as the people who drive the dirty white truck (just a statement of fact and here in Toledo, everyone is recognised by the vehicle that they drive). Twice a year, I wash and wax the car and the rest of the time we don’t wash it. And you are probably scratching your head and wondering if this is an environmental issue (save water??) or something. Well actually it is to maintain and preserve the metal body work of the car. This of course is a quirky Gnome observation…he says that if your car is caked in mud for most of the year (with generous wax coating), it actually preserves the metal body and it is protected from rusting. Mind you, I haven’t seen any copy-cats so our innovative idea isn’t catching on…Ha-Ha!!

What do you think? This is a 12 year old truck now…looking good twice a year!!

Random piece of information: you can now buy Italian biscuits (cookies) in Punta Gorda. You know, once a long time ago, you couldn’t get anything down here. Sign of the times:

We have been doing more clearing…there was a very dangerous looking tree too close to our veranda. Gnome said:

“…we need to get rid of that. It is a horrible accident waiting to happen…”

Okay so that lanky, long looking tree has been taken down so one less thing to worry about.

Oh look…dandelions do grow in Belize…

Have a great evening and stay away from those pesky mosquitoes. I hear that there is a great insect repellent made from lemongrass… 😉

Belize

It’s a Tad Wet Out Here!

June 10, 2018 Munchkin

It’s a tad wet out here..

We can’t get out because it is bucketing down. Here are some pictures of the wetness from the veranda. It is pouring down and it doesn’t look like it wants to stop…

That’s our peanut field out there. If you look closely, the rows of peanut are up…but, look at all the water pooling. Gnome says that when it stops raining (when??) we will run out and put cardboard mulch to soak up the water in between the sprouting peanuts. We don’t want the peanuts to get water-logged at this point.

This is a picture for Joyce; see the peanuts are sprouting really well. When I can get out, I will take a picture of the rows close up:

At least the Goosies are having fun…it is absolute bliss for them right now…

Soooo much water. Gnome has told me to keep a tab on all the puddles (ponds??) that form on the farm during times like this. When it gets drier, we will plant vetiver which helps to stop soil erosion:

I guess we have to stay indoors today…..

Amusing, Belize, Farming, Food

Jackfruit Day.

June 7, 2018 Munchkin

Okay, so when we got up this morning, the sun was out but then the dark clouds moved in and then the sun peaked again and then, alas, there were clouds piling up from the east…oh, but then there was a bit of sun coming out again. We checked the weather report and it said there was a 50% chance of rain and 50% chance of no rain. When Panda came at 9am to help out on the farm, we sent him home since it started drizzling , the black clouds were gathering and there was a lot of thunder. As soon as he left, the sun came out again. The weather went back and forth and back and forth and back and forth until I could stand it no more. Gnome realised I was turning into Crazy Munchkin so said,

“Okay, let’s stay indoors and make it a jackfruit day.”

(Thank God for sensible, no nonsense and practical Gnomes).

Well, you might have seen our jackfruits already…they are huge. Gnome cut them in half and I separated the seeds from the flesh.

Prepared Fruit:

We cleaned two huge jackfruit which took about 1 and 1/2 hours. It is really hard work, by the way, but I shouldn’t complain because it is a tonne of food.

I haven’t enjoyed eating the seeds in the past…we found them rather mealy and disappointing. This time however, our harvest was from a different tree; the boiled seeds were surprisingly good and did actually taste of chestnuts. There must have been about 10lbs of jackfruit seeds.

Once you boil the seed, there is an outer covering which you need to take off. Here is a close up picture of a cooked jackfruit seed cut in half:

Our plan is to dry the boiled seeds in the sun (what sun??!!) and once they have dried, we will ground them into flour. That’s the plan anyway…

So today, we stuffed ourselves full of jackfruit and the boiled seeds. I think we over-ate a wee bit because we both have sore stomachs right now. We are trying to settle our symptoms down with some peppermint tea. 😉

The rest of the fruit is being boiled up, as we speak, for wine; it is a murky mess right now but hopefully in a year, it will look like this:

So what’s it going to be tomorrow?? Sunny or Rainy. 🙂

Oh I might make marron glacé with the jackfruit nuts if I am in a good mood tomorrow….

Amusing, Belize, Farming

The Sun is Out!!

June 6, 2018 Munchkin

I know, I know, when you live this lifestyle, it is all about the weather. Your days on the farm are dictated by whether you can get out or not. The last six days, we have had grey skies and a whole tonne of rain. Great for the plants…but, at some point there was so much of it we were worried that our peanut field would get washed away. But alas, today we saw the first signs of peanut germination…we are pleased to see hope in our efforts to grow our own food.

The sun is out today with lovely rippling blue skies. We ventured out today to fill up tyres with seaweed to plant an assortment of roots.

We felt better for moving about. The last week we have been stuck indoors trying to do indoor activities in a tiny space. We made serious attempts to not drive each other potty!! We have become used to a certain amount of daily physical work…(Gnome says this is what keeps us young plus plenty of sleep)…so that we get really crabby cooped up indoors. Well thank goodness, the sun came out today.

Gnome planted two rows of okra between the peanuts:

The month of June is very fickle and unpredictable; you don’t know whether to plan outside or inside activities because you never know what is going to happen. Gnome reminded me:

“…don’t get your hopes up too much for a work schedule in June…June is as fickle as a Wo….”

Munchkin: “What?????”

Gnome: “…Wombat…that is what I said…”

Munchkin: “Hmmmm.”

This month drives us crazy because of this but hey, we can’t complain when all our water tanks are full again and the pond is half full from just six days of rain. Needless to say, the goosies are having a wonderful time splashing about in puddles and have started trooping out to the pond again. That’s good because they can get out from under my feet…they are like a bunch of school children…

Casa Mascia Apothecary