Category Archives: Belize

Hello Again!!

February 10, 2018 Munchkin

I just realised that I have not written for ages!! Okay, so what’s happening? We have had rain and lots more rain. The last few days, the sun has come out a bit (hooray) but still more rain. It is all quite splashy and puddly right now. Still can’t get out there!! If you recall in a New Year’s post I thought that the new year truly started according to the Lunar Calendar (ie. Chinese New Year)…well, it certainly looks that way. We are heading towards Chinese New Year (next week, 16th of February) so we have to see if the new moon will allow us to get out on the farm and start (and finish) projects.

Not much to report except that I am planning the Chinese New Year celebration food which will include camp-fire gibnut…

Pictures from the farm:

Drying tobacco; we have all-sorts including Burley, Virginia and Turkish.

Gnome is still making charcoal; we have had some wild winds blowing down tree branches around the farm. We are piling them all up to start another barrel of charcoal:

The bucket garden fell down over Christmas but is now back up again. We are not adding too many extra plants at this point because dry season is approaching:

More plants up here too on the veranda. The plants are taking over:

Tomatillo:

Plants on the veranda; two types of eggplant (aubergine); one is a white round egg and the other is an oval orangey one with green stripes. I will have pictures once they have formed:

The goosie barricade around the house is slowly being formed. Goosies be warned; you are a bunch of noisy trouble-makers and you need to be further away from us for our emotional and spiritual well-being.

Ooooh…lovely colour….sorrel elixir (tincture) in the making:

Have a lovely night if you are still up!

Belize, Food, Plants

Tastes Like Apricot…

February 2, 2018 Munchkin 1 Comment

Can you believe it! Our stats went through the roof with New Sexy Gnome. Too funny. Anyway, back to the fruit and vegetables on the farm. This one is interesting because I’ve written a bit on it here, so click if you want to read more:

I am re-discovering this plant again (since it is fruiting season right now) and it is fascinating. I now recall years ago (it could have been about 8 years ago) when we first saw this plant in Spice Farms in Toledo and Gnome’s eagle eyes chanced upon a single fruit that had dried on the bush. When we both tasted this we were absolutely amazed that it had such an intense flavour of apricot. Anyway, we saved the single seed that was in it. Gnome planted this seed, babied it and it has turned into the huge monster that it is now.

The main point was that I forgot about the apricot taste because I subsequently pigeon-holed it as a “gooseberry” because of its name. When it is picked fresh, it does have the texture and acidity of a gooseberry. In the past, I have mixed it with other fruits to make jams and preserves and not really thought that the flavour was anything exciting or different.

However, this time I tried to make a “jam” out of the fruit by itself. This is what I did:

I picked 2lbs of the fruit and washed them removing any spiky bits.
The fruits contain black seeds that are edible. I felt that sifting the seeds out was too labour intensive so I opted to buzz the whole lot fruit in a blender. The crushed seeds blend into the fruit.
I added equal parts sugar to the fruit and placed all of this in a stainless steel stock-pot and proceeded to make jam.

This is what happened:

The jam did not set. That means that the fruit does not have natural pectin. I didn’t have any pectin so I couldn’t do anything about it so it ended up being a syrup (sauce) type of thing.
When I tasted the cooked fruit with sugar, it tasted of nothing. Quite disappointing…a great looking orangey fruit cooked with sugar.
When cooked, the fruit takes on a gloopy (slimy) texture. It’s not as bad as it sounds.
I thought that the flavour was so bland that I chucked in about 4 Tbsp of ground black pepper.

I canned the “sauce” in glass jars and had some on the same day to try it out. I didn’t think much of it so I planned to re-dump the the sauce into the stainless steel pot and add some kick-ass habanero peepers to it.

Time passed (a week) and I didn’t do anything with the sauce. We were having oatmeal (we ran out of honey) and decided to put some of this sauce on top. Wow was it good!! It just needed time to work the magic…synergise…what-ever but it now tastes like apricots. The black pepper compliments the sauce very well. I am very pleased with it!! I now have 6 jars of Barbados Gooseberry and Black pepper sauce sitting proudly in my pantry. This one is so good I will save it for special occasions.

Definitely worth picking:

Okay have a great weekend!!

Amusing, Belize, Farming

Gnome is the New Sexy!

January 31, 2018 Munchkin

Well, he’s turned white (nearly) so we said why not?? Gnome is the new sexy!! This is also a pathetic bid to get our stats up…can a handsome picture of the Gnome get more people to read our Blog and be spurred to transform their lives in significant ways??

Anyway, what’s happening? It’s been pouring down for days, so much so that I’ve lost count of the number of days. The ground around the house is getting muddy and wet and it doesn’t help with the geese trampling about with their big clumsy feet. The goosies are a bunch of loitering hooligans around our house right now and I am getting headaches from their constant screeching and shrieking. Gnome’s comment:

“…if only they used that noisy energy to lay eggs…at least they could do something useful…”

Gnome has been feeling a bit dour lately and has commenced Gnome’s Hadrian’s Wall of Tyres. He is systematically forming a high fence of tyres around the house…an impenetrable barrier against the dastardly goosies.

Munchkin: “Gnome, I thought you liked the geese.”

Gnome: “Of course I like them. If I didn’t I’d make it a lot easier for myself and get rid of the whole lot. Instead, I am moving heavy tyres on account of them.”

Anyway, we are filling the tyres with soil, seaweed and sawdust; our plan is plant in each stack of tyres…we will be starting with papaya and I am sure we will think of many other food plants and trees. I will have pictures for the next post. I just wanted to showcase the New Look Gnome on this one. 🙂

Amusing, Belize, Feedback

Morning Wake Up!!

January 23, 2018 Munchkin

I woke up this morning at the usual time 6am and then dived under the covers, covering my ears. I pretended that I was snoozing. Gnome was tossing and turning and huffing and puffing because he knew what was about to come: the usual 6am DIN. The goosies go off like nothing on earth…shrieking and honking like there is no tomorrow right at our doorstep: HONK –WAKEUP–HONK!!!! RISE AND SHINE MUNCHKIN AND GNOME–HONK HONK!!!. This has been our wake up call for the last two weeks and it has been gradually driving us potty! Gnome shouted into my little cave under the blankets,

“…can you sleep through that??”

No I couldn’t but I was insisting on not getting up!! Right now we are having early morning rains which is the perfect reason for sleeping in…but the geese are making it impossible. Anyway, as we got up, the noise rose to a fever pitch and when I opened the front door to peak through a crack, they cackled and shrieked with gusto… and when I finally opened the door wide, they suddenly stopped like nothing had happened. They were shuffling about on the yard minding their own business.

I swear, they are doing this on purpose!! The goosies are out to get us with their evil goosie taunts…

Anyway, last night we decided that we can’t stand the noisy geese during breeding season which happens to be 6 months of the year! An executive decision has been made to: “fence them out.” We are going to have a fence around our house to protect us from the noise pollution . We can’t however do it this year because any changes bang in the middle of breeding season will probably incite a riot and we might be over-thrown in the power struggle.

The original plan was to “Fence Goosies In” to protect them from critters and possums. The new plan is to “Fence Goosies out” to protect us from them…

“Fence Goosies Out.” is going to be job#586: we will get to it hopefully by the end of the year. Meanwhile, we have to get up at 6am every morning, rain or shine…

Belize, Food, Plants

Interesting Garden Plants.

January 21, 2018 Munchkin

Wow…Munchkin is really balancing on the precipice of excitement with her innovative titles. 🙂

This is a red spinach called orach (Atriplex hortensis). It has a mildly bitter taste which makes a good salad leaf. When cooked, it still preserves its lovely red colour (compare with red okra that unfortunately turns green with heat). According to Wiki, it has a “salty taste” which I don’t taste at all (warning: not everything that you read on the Internet is for real!!). It is a member of the amaranth family so you can some resemblance to callaloo which is a well-known green leafy vegetable here in Belize.

This is called Wonderberry (Solanum retroflexum) and produces tiny purple berries (like a huckleberry). The berries are good for making jam and preserves. We have a whole bunch of these growing on our beds and we can’t get a single berry because the early bird gets them. We are considering re-location of these plants to a more secluded area…not going to say where in case a little birdie is reading this!

The other day when we were walking together hand in hand through our messy, shrubby overgrown garden (aaarrrrghhh…need a brush-mower, a cow or sheep or somethin’), Gnome suddenly stopped in his tracks and looked upwards saying’ “…thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!!” I thought that he was in the throes of rapture but then I looked up too and saw these flowers peaking out at us; our first kola nut (bizzy nut) flowers. I have written about this tree here if interested in reading more.

This is lantana; it is a plant that comes up as a weed everywhere here. It is a honey plant for butterflies. We have decided that we rather like looking at butterflies and are leaving these flowers around our yard.

Have a good evening!!

Belize, Elixirs, Farming, Plants

What Happens To January?

January 20, 2018 Munchkin 2 Comments

What happened to January? We are more than half way through already!! Despite this, we are still doing our New Year’s greetings…maybe it is just us because we don’t see people that often. Anyway, there is always work to be done and there is never enough time to do it all. I have been catching up with harvesting; what we both hate is leaving stuff on trees and watching them drop to the ground. Today, I harvested the sorrel (roselle). I have to admit that I feel very lazy when I think about these because you have to sit and take off every single sepal. My problem is that I don’t like sitting down and this task forces me to be sedentary.

You have to remove the sepals from the pods:

Seed Pods Separated From the Sorrel Fruit.

These are the sepals all nicely cleaned up:

It is however very satisfying once it is all done. This year, I am making Sorrel Elixir (liqueur); I am making two versions: one has very little sugar and they other is more syrupy. I think that the sugary one will do very well poured over ice-cream and desserts. The colour is really amazing when you see the sorrel infusions. It looks better than this in real life.

But then it gets very dark as it matures:

Once it is mature, it tastes a bit like a sherry.

Here is the sepal picture again just because it is rather beautiful!

Have a lovely day!!

Amusing, Belize, Food, Plants

Vegetable Pictures!

January 17, 2018 Munchkin

It is still really cold at about 20C/68F; you know when it gets to this temperature because the coconut oil in the bottles solidify! Anyway, still hats, woolly scarves and home-made charcoal burner at our feet in the morning and at night. So glad Gnome is making charcoal!

We are still taming the chaos…does not happen over-night and I suspect it might take us a while to get back on top of things. The other thing is that the geese are getting badder (I like baaad english!! Pushing passed the barriers of expression) and I got a huge bruise on my thigh from a full throttle head-on attack. I had to sumo wrestle the head goosie and boy, did he have fun! When I let him win, he was honking like crazy and puffing out his chest as he weaved in and out of his goosie crowd, doing the goosie dance (a bit like a chicken dancing but with no head bobbing…head up in the air in the splendour of victory). I let him win, of course, since I have the unfair advantage of being bigger and cleverer and being human. 🙂

Anyway, back to the serious Munchkin and Gnome stuff. Growing vegetables, ogling at our vegetables, eating them and (taking pictures when we remember). We don’t grow vegetables or do our lifestyle in order to Blog about it!! Somebody asked us if we chose our lifestyle in order to talk (Blog) about it…what a very weird way of looking at things!!

To clarify: we grow vegetables to eat them because they taste good.

Vegetable and Fruit Gallery:

Endives grow very well; they are quite drought resistant so we might be able to take them through the dry season.

The fennel looks spectacular right now:

Kale grows well here too:

Spring onions:

Oh had to sneak in last New Year yum-yum picture. Smoked salmon (my favourite), prosciutto, salami and parmesan.

Barbados gooseberry (Ora pro nobis) time again:

Time to make more jam and preserves!

Belize, Farming

Taming The Chaos!

January 13, 2018 Munchkin 2 Comments

Phew…everything inside and outside just exploded into chaos these last few weeks. Just a couple of weeks trying to take it easy has culminated in a majorly messy farm. Okay, but we are ready to face the work and the gate has been fixed and now closes properly. Yeah! Gnome said:

“…it’s still wonky though…but not so wonky….”

He had to change the hinges to these ones to shorten one side of the gate so that the gate would close properly:

Yeah, I know, you are probably thinking who would take pictures of their gate hinges? Munchkin and Gnome of course because hinges are of vital importance in putting gates up…if you ever need to do it yourself, you will understand. The Gate Closes!

Gnome has been making charcoal. The first lot did not burn well so Gnome had to drill more holes in the bottom of the steel drum to allow more air flow:

Now we have this burning continuously outside our house to make charcoal; what would the neighbours say? It is a good thing that they are so far away!! 🙂

One load of wood packed into this drum reduces to about a quarter volume of charcoal. Right now, we are using the charcoal to boil water for washing. Gnome says that he is going to make me a charcoal cooking stove. He is already trying to perfect the home-made tin stoves with air flow windows:

Watch this space for cooking Munchkin-Style on a tin charcoal stove…

Right now for our personal needs, Gnome needs to burn a drum of wood every three days. Our hope is to entice Panda to start making charcoal and designate him head collier. 🙂

Amusing, Belize, Farming

A Sunny Day…

January 10, 2018 Munchkin 2 Comments

Another bright sunny day and so we keep on going with our dream farm which is always “in progress” or “in process.” Arrrgh…but when you look outside, everything is getting bushy because we can’t get the grass done (walk behind brush-mower is no longer working -RIP). We are attracting a lot of toucans, light blue birdies and bright red coloured birdies because of the semi-bushy state. A bird spotter would cringe at my lack of birdie knowledge…ha-ha!!

Very Bushy:

Anyway, I kind of mentioned that we had lost all our guinea pigs to a rogue possum. Yes I know…Paradise Piggies are no more and have passed onto become Heavenly Piggies.

We love you piggies!! Miss you!!

So, every night, for the last 5 nights, we have been baiting the possum with an enticing bucket of scraps that we place in full veranda-view on the nearest vegetable bed. Sure enough, every night something has been knocking it over and slurping out of the bucket. They never finish it because it is too much and every night I set the bucket up straight for it.

A few days ago, we decided that it was time “to get the possum.” During our much-loved sleeping time, we donned our long sleeves, long trousers and woolly hats and sat in the darkness of the veranda waiting quietly for the possum. Gnome had his pellet gun ready (for full destruction) and I had lights ready to switch on to dazzle. I also had a bucket of brine ready to dunk the cleaned carcass in preparation of a possum dutch oven/curry for the day after.

Anyway, we waited and waited and waited. The stars were pretty!! And when I got accustomed to the darkness, I could see different shades of blackness…kind of poetic and meditative if you ignore the biting mosquitoes!!

(Meanwhile the cat was in the house sleeping…usually by now he would have been kicked out for his usual night duty).

Okay, so nothing happened…and no possum came…not much of a story, right?

Oh but what happened when we finally got the cat out of the house in the wee hours of the night? The bucket turned over…

We’ve been baiting the cat??!! Oops…upside down picture…not upside down cat!!

Where is that darn possum?? I really want my possum curry. Yes we have declared war on all possums in the vicinity…

Belize, Farming

Starting Again!

January 9, 2018 Munchkin

Okay, so we listened to our Jungle Tune a few more times and then we got up and started moving around. We feel a bit better today. We are running out of charcoal because we are boiling water every night for washing (shower re-location…usual…blah-blah-blah…renovating) so Gnome started making charcoal today. He basically filled a 55 gallon drum with wood and started a fire in it. Every now and then, he checks on the drum of wood…shoogles and shakes the contents…there is the sound of some tin bashing about and then I hear him adding more logs of wood.

In between all this, he has started C++ programming tutorials for fun. And there is another reason: Panda very nicely bought him a Raspberry Pi kit (never knew anything like that existed) which is a little computer that integrates electronics with computer programs (which can be coded in C++ hence the sudden resurgence of computer programming excitement). These afternoons, we are working through Raspberry Pi tutorials together; I wire the circuit and he programs. It is actually nice and romantic in a Munchkin and Gnome sort of way.

From a purely practical point of view, this gadget actually opens doors to all-new Gnome inventions-(TM) -guaranteed to make life easier on the farm-kinda like Wallace and Gromit. The first experiment is a RFID cat flap for our cat and then we will branch out and RFID tag our female geese to help get them into designated feeding areas. Watch this space…Munchkin and Gnome: The Next Generation!!

Kitty is going to get a special electronic cat flap!

There is much to do, clean up, tidy up and maintain that I just need to walk out of the door and pick the nearest thing. I began by cleaning up the vegetable beds and started up some more vegetable seedlings. We have to be careful about what we plant now because we will have to look after these plants over dry season. We have managed to plant out all our fruit trees and spread cardboard mulch around them…the cardboard is great because it will eventually break down and add to the soil and it stops weeds from growing up around the trees. Also, thanks Panda for bringing us cardboard every week (amongst other useful things including sawdust and seaweed).

Casa Mascia Apothecary