Category Archives: Belize

Excitement Central!

March 31, 2021 Munchkin

Hello!! What have we been up to, you may be asking? Excitement Central?? Well, I just wanted to get my foot through the door…TRUCK PROBLEMS!!! You need to look at the picture and guffaw and laugh!! We have put our truck on a ramp to push start it manually!! Yeah, just the two of us pushing 4 tons together. We must be getting older but fitter or something!!

Okay, to get out of the farm it has been tough this month of March! We started off with the truck not starting in the middle of Punta Gorda; that was all fine and good because there were loads of tough, strong men to push start the truck for us! It turned out to be a starter problem so we decided to get it fixed straight away. We drove back home and parked it on a downward slope and made an appointment to get the truck fixed. Next day…with copious amounts of praying…we got the truck started at 5am on the dot (still have the 10pm to 4.59am curfew here) and drove all the way to Belmopan which was about 3 hours drive. So far so good, we managed to get it to our Toyota dealership for fixing. That day was not so good. There were other trucks on priority and we were forgotten; it ended up being a last minute rush job that got everyone (including ourselves) in a tizz. The starter was ‘re-modelled’ and we paid a hefty bill for this and other problems. Munchkin was not happy but at the end of the day, the truck started and we just wanted to get home.

That wasn’t the end of the story…no, there is more…

Last week, we were called on a medical emergency while we were at home. Okay, so we did our usual and ran into the truck and…and…and…it wouldn’t start!!! Oh, the stress of it all. We couldn’t believe it was the starter again (didn’t we just pay a huge bill to get it fixed!!) so Gnome checked the battery and everything else. He turned the ignition key again…nothing!! Arrrrgh!!!!

Oh dear…we finally had to call the people who had the emergency to come get us. So, that was okay.

When we got home from the medical call-out, we had to deal with our own emergency! We decided to ‘sit on it’ and think about what to do. I wasn’t in a rush to go back to our previous mechanic (they were rubbish!) and besides, we couldn’t get out of the farm. It wasn’t parked on a slope so we would have to push start it somehow.

Meanwhile…we got phone calls from people in town requiring medical appointments. Oh, more stress!! I hate letting people down. Of all the weeks that it could happen…we seemed to be very popular that week. Oh, and there was a business meeting out of town…not sure if that was anything but we are usually not in such demand!

We finally got help to push start the truck off the driveway. When the engine was running, the first thing that Gnome did was to build a ramp for the truck. Yes, let me show you again what he did…

How to push start a truck in the middle of nowhere!!

So, when we need to go for a drive, Gnome releases the hand-break and we use the momentum to push the truck out of the farm onto the main road. Gnome pushes from the left door and I am hanging onto the right door. At some point, Gnome has to turn the steering wheel to get onto the main road. We still push on both sides…this is hard work…my butt still hurts!! Then, when the truck starts moving down the main road, Gnome has to jump into the driver seat (more thrilling heroics) and I am still pushing at this stage. Once there is enough speed, Gnome starts the ignition and the engine splutters to life.

Okay, that is how we have been getting the truck started in this tiny piece of nowhere in Belize. Right now, we are only going out for emergencies!!

Belize, Farming

Gnome is Working!

March 21, 2021 Munchkin

Hey, Every-one!! A Happy Sunday to y’all (Gnome thinks it is very funny when I start getting all Southern because he says I don’t sound Southern at all! Anyway, enough of the silliness…oh, yes the new website…the first few days, Gnome was very frustrated and couldn’t get anywhere with coding our new shop (well, he has never programmed in his life until now). But, patience won out and he has nearly finished coding the brand new website. My Hero -HaHa!! We have set up the website in an extremely simple way…it is not dynamic at the moment with shopping carts and all… we are going back to old-fashioned ‘order by email’ for now. With time, we will get fancier but please be patient with us…we are also busy harvesting peanuts right now and trying to clean up 20 acres of land! Anyway, I am happy with the new website because it is more comprehensive; it is easier to code all the information onto the pages so we will have every single product available on-line. The present website does not have everything…anyway, the new one is scheduled to be up for Easter (fingers crossed!!).

It has been raining lately so we have had the time to work at the computer. However, in between that time, we are always doing stuff. We are still in the middle of cleaning up the yard and yonder 20 acres. Here is a picture from our veranda…

Still looks bushy but it is cleaned up!! the coconuts are getting really big…these ones were babies when we first came onto the land. Now they are baring heavily. Here is another picture of a coconut palm…I am amazed at how much they have grown…

Not much else happening since we are getting ‘square eyes’ sitting in front of the computer screen. Gnome is coding whilst I am writing the page content. Oh, we have more wine…Gnome is also going through a wine- making phase…

That’s it for now. We are enjoying the rains before the dry season!

Belize, Farming, Food

Website Back Up and Other Stuff!

March 11, 2021 Munchkin 2 Comments

Hello!! We sorted out the casamascia.com website and it is back on-line. Having said all of that, we had a good think about the website (whilst it was lost in the ethers of Internet space) and admitted that it is a real pain to manipulate. I think that superficially, the site is okay. However, I haven’t been updating or adding anything new because the logistics behind the site are unwieldy and painstakingly tedious. It isn’t so straight-forward and it takes about thirty pages (clicks) to change one single thing on the site. Our Internet is slow so about thirty clicks between page changes takes about 2 to 3 hours. We have decided to change-over (it will take some time) to a simpler website; Gnome has embarked upon learning web-design (in amongst his already busy schedule of mowing, planting, doctoring and general gnoming). We think that if we have a simpler website, we will take more opportunity to expand and spend more time on it.

Anyway, onto other things since I have not written for a while. What have we been eating lately? The geese have started laying and we have been eating goose eggs!! We have got so used to the size (they about the size of three chicken eggs) that we think that they are normal sized. We feel blessed that we can indulge in a luxury that simply cannot be bought: fresh goose eggs with lovely yellow, runny yolks cooked in our home-pressed vegetable oils.

Look at that lovely yolk:

What else? February and March is pigeon pea time again. We have been collecting them green, shelling them together in a romantic Munchkin-Gnome sort of way and cooking them in stews. When they are green, the peas just need to be boiled for about 5 to 8 minutes and they are ready to eat. They retain the green colour with cooking so make a great pea substitute.

Pigeon pea (Cajanus cajun) is also known as Ganga Bean in Belize. It is a long forgotten plant and many older people remember picking the pods as young children for their mothers to cook. I don’t see much of it in Belize but it is a high protein bean that is very nutritious. It is a good animal forage food for fowl, cattle and horses. They grow easily from seed, require no maintenance and are very productive. I definitely recommend this crop for anyone who wants to grow their own food.

Pigeon Peas:

We have been eating a fair bit of this too:

Oh yum!! These are all the reasons for growing your own food!!

Wait, there is more…

We have Gnome-made sorrel (roselle) wine. Check out the colour. With all this food and drink, we don’t want to leave the farm:

Okay that is it for now. I am off to search for goosie eggs for lunch…

Belize, Our Products

Website Down!

March 7, 2021 Munchkin

Hi Guys!! Just a quickie to let you know that our Casa Mascia Apothecary website is down. We are not sure what has happened but it seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth! We are working on it! Anyway, meanwhile if any-one is looking for anything or wants to get in contact with us, please email us at info@casamascia.com. I will write soon but the Internet is really playing up right now!

Amusing, Belize, Farming, Food, Plants

Sherlock Gnomes Goes Bananas!

February 12, 2021 Munchkin

I know…Ha-Ha…I am scraping the bottom of the barrel with Sherlock Gnomes! I have decided…even if I am the only person who gets a silly giggle out of all this silliness…at least that is something! It is better to laugh than to cry!

Okay, so we are harvesting banana bunches like there is no tomorrow. Gnome has been hanging them up on the rafters of the veranda. Lotsa Bananas!! You get the picture…

Every morning, we woke up to decimated banana bunches…they have been nibbled at from all sides. Something was eating our bananas…in a bad way…a little bit here and there. It was soooo annoying! If something is going to pilfer a banana, they might as well take the entire banana and be done with it! They ended up spoiling every banana without eating the entire thing. Anyway, we thought: It must be rats!!

Based on this premise that the bites looked like rat-sized bites, Gnome set about putting rat traps up on the rafters. Since we only had a limited number of traps, Gnome had to guess the route of the rat via the rafters. Every-night, he tried trapping a different route and every morning, we woke up to more lost bananas. The rat was out-witting Munchkin and Gnome!! Ha-Ha!!

After a few days of losing copious amounts of bananas, we decided that we just had to get the culprit! We were losing our precious food!! So, one night we switched off all the lights and pretended we had gone to bed. We waited in the dark to see what would happen and to see the actual route of the rat. Can you guess what we saw??

It was a FRUIT BAT!! No wonder the rat traps didn’t work. In the dark, it swooped back and forth from the bananas taking little bite size chunks.

So we finally solved the Mystery of the Decimated Bananas. Since it was a bat, we simply stopped hanging the banana bunches from the rafters and laid them down on the table with a cloth over them. That did the trick!!

Now, what happens if we have a rat and a fruit bat at the same time??!! Also, what is our farm cat doing at night…the lazy good-for-nothing!!

Belize, Farming, Food

All About Aubergines!

February 11, 2021 Munchkin

We have decided to develop a definitive list of vegetables that we want to grow every year. You know…the ones that are ‘the bread and butter’ of our meals. I love aubergines…eggplants… I love to watch them grow from seedling to plant and I love the look of them. Oh, and I also like to eat them! There isn’t enough time and energy to grow every single aubergine that I like so for the last two years or so, I have been growing different types and then deciding if they should be on my ‘must have’ list. This post is a dedicated gallery to all my lovely aubergines that I have grown so far. I will show you a picture and tell you a wee bit about them.

This stripey orange eggplant is originally from Africa (not sure where in Africa). It grows to about 5 feet tall and produces copious bunches of fruit. It is a prolific producer and can grow in the worst soil ever (dry, clay and unfertilised soils). It is very drought tolerant and can with-stand Belizean dry season. It is a tough plant that does not need much care. The fruits start off being white with stripes and gradually ripen to the orange colour. The taste is mediocre…mildly bitter and the skin is mildly tough. They have the texture of what we know as eggplant but not much of a taste. They are best boiled in soups and stews to absorb the flavour from other ingredients. Conclusion: I like that it produces tonnes of fruit but I decided against re-planting because they are not tasty enough.

The next one is a Thai eggplant that look like little eggs. They get to about an inch in size. I had two rows of these plants; they ranged from a purple/white to completely white in colour.

These aubergines are very pretty and also make a nice ornamental. They needed heavy fertilising and nearly died over dry season in Belize. I thought that this plant would be heavy with fruit but I was sadly disappointed. Despite good soil, heavy watering and constant trimming, they still produced few fruit. And the taste…rather disappointing also…they are so cute and I was hoping for a sweet juicy ball to pop in my mouth. They tasted of nothing with lots of seeds!! This one is pretty but is not on the list to re-plant.

I managed to get heirloom seeds of an aubergine from Iran. These are great! They are hardy and drought resistant. In fact, they can even take the Toledo rains. They grow all year round and are very good producers. The fruit can get to a really big size (depending on rainfall) and I have had ones about half a foot in width. They are sweet and tasty. The only downside is that when they get too big, they can have the texture of hard foam. Otherwise, they are a winner and will be planted again this year.

I have saved my favourite for the last one. This is another Thai variety of aubergine.

This is a beauty!! It can get very big and can weigh about half a pound. They grow into massive bushes so need a lot of space. It seems to have survived wet season and I am now watching it as we enter dry season. Oh, the taste is delectable; they are sweet and the texture is firm. They are even lovely steamed with a little bit of salt and pepper. This beautiful aubergine is my favourite so far and is a definite keeper!

I am growing more aubergines so I haven’t quite finished my aubergine rant yet! Until next time…

Amusing, Belize, Farming

Sherlock Gnomes!

February 9, 2021 Munchkin

Hey, guys!! Phew…it has been sooo hot!! Dry season may have started. It’s that time of the year again. Anyway, I have a funny story from the farm!

The story started with Cat Trouble which involved our big fat farm cat. Here is a picture of him to remind you of who we are talking about:

He sleeps a lot and he does usually look like this most of the time. The last week or so, he has been wide awake and acting all squirrelly. It was like he had taken a big gulp of coffee and he couldn’t sleep for days. Mostly, he was pacing up and down, pawing at doors to get out of the house (or get into the house). He was agitated and antsy and a pain in the neck!! At first, Sherlock Gnomes thought it was due to the maturing new cat (Crazy Cat) whom we hadn’t fixed yet. Crazy Cat is now about 4 times the size of the picture below with biggish balls (if you pardon my language).

Sherlock Gnomes: ‘…Hmmm, it might be the testosterone that the cat is producing that is bothering Big Cat…’

Okay, since there was so much silly nonsense going on with big farm cat, we got Crazy Cat fixed straight away. Okay done…oh, but big cat is still behaving the same…what’s going on??

Let’s now bring in another story that was happening about the same time. I lost my last piece of Christmas ham!! I left it defrosting over-night in the kitchen sink. For the purposes of this story, it is important to realise that our kitchen is on the veranda which is opened out with no walls or screening and has been like this for about 5 years. I have never had any pilfering so this was the first time. I woke up in the morning to a completely decimated piece of ham on the sink…something ate 1kg (2 lbs) of salty meat in one sitting. My first culprit was our Big Cat….which surprised me because he never (ever) jumps up on table tops to steal food…not in the 10 years that we have had him! However, since he had been acting ‘out of sorts’ lately I thought that he was a likely candidate.

Cat: I don’t understand what you are asking me.

Anyway, if you have ever tried talking to cat in a reasonable manner, you will know that you don’t get anywhere with that sort of talk. Sherlock Gnomes inspected his abdominal area for signs of stolen ham:

Sherlock Gnomes: ‘…Hmmm…it does not feel like he has consumed 1kg of ham…’

So, maybe it wasn’t him?? Who was it?? The other two kittens are still too small to jump onto this veranda…also, Big Cat is still acting weird…what’s going on!!

We decided after much deliberation with a couple of cups of tea that we could possibly have a possum thief. It is possum time again…

So, we set out traps with fried chicken bones (we have found that 10 out of 10 animals love fried chicken!). We made sure to put a few out so that even if we caught our cat, there would still be a trap left over to get the possum.

What do we find the next morning??? Drum roll please: what did we catch?? A Big Orange Cat…but not OUR big cat. Another male cat!!

The Case of the Antsy Cat and The Case of the Stolen Ham had been solved by the single capture of a cat!! Of course, our cat had been going crazy with another male cat prowling around the house!! And this cat was big…he ate my ham!!

Case has been solved. Oh, but there is more. We have another Sherlock Gnomes story to share with you! Tune in next time for more mystery and entertainment from the farm!

Belize, Farming, Plants

February Already!!

February 4, 2021 Munchkin

Hello, I keep on forgetting to write! January just passed by in a flash (I think I say this every year but it never ceases to amaze me) and now it is February already. The last time I wrote, I had a leg injury…I did have to sit with my leg up for 5 days to get better. It was gruesomely boring but I knew that I had to rest the leg to get a quick recovery. It was terrible because I couldn’t get up and down stairs and walk about on uneven ground on the farm…definitely not good if you live on a farm…made me realise that there is a certain level of fitness required in living this lifestyle. Gnome found me gruesomely annoying during this time!! Thanks for all your patience, Gnome!!

Let’s talk about calamondin since these are my last pictures left in my gallery. This is a citrus originally from the Philippines. It is a small round, orange citrus with a thin peel. The juice is sour and can be used in drinks or for marinating meat.

We planted our calamondins about 7 years ago; we got our seed from a Filipino lady in Belize…there are a surprising high number of Filipino people living in Belize especially in the Stann Creek area. The thing I like about this particular citrus is that the peel comes off easily and does not have the bitter pith that comes normally with these types of fruit.

I use the peel in all kinds of food…I put it soups, stews and stir fry…you get a really nice orangey taste and aroma in your food.

Of course, you can use the peel in sweets too as you can see in the next picture; we rolled pastry out with our wonderful noodle maker and baked a calamondin roll:

Okay, I have to get out there and take more farm pictures for my blog posts!

Amusing, Belize

One of Those Days…

January 23, 2021 Munchkin

Do you ever get one of those days that you can’t get anything done or it takes ages to get something done that normally takes 10 minutes? I am having one of those days.

This morning, Gnome woke me up with a sudden jolt. He was dreaming and shouted, ‘Explosion!!!‘ in his sleep. I woke up and exclaimed, ‘…what…explosion??‘

I got such a shocking wake up that I pulled the muscle in the back of my leg…owhhhh!!! Ouch!!!

Ouch!!!!

So, while I was trying to wake up properly and massage the strained muscle in my leg, Gnome told me about his dream. He said that he was trying to pick up huge melons on the ground and because they were so ripe, they were exploding.

So, Gnome was dreaming about exploding fruit. I am not surprised that Gnome dreams about things like that.

Anyway, after being rudely woken up this morning, nothing felt right. The kittens were whining from the get-go and the gaggle of geese were in the throes of war and acting up more than normal. I stumbled about with my sore leg and spilled the tea. Oh dear…

Time to Stop!!

Oh and then I tried to write some text messages to organise some things in the outside world (I like my ducks in a row!!) and none of them would send properly.

Okay, I got the message. I finally stopped…my leg was hurting so now I have it up on a stool, resting on a cushion. Gnome has put Crazy Cat on my lap and he has told me not to move.

I think that’s it for the day! It’s just one of those days!!

Belize, Food

Dumplings With Munchkin &Gnome!!

January 22, 2021 Munchkin

How is that for a catchy title. This one is about the noodle maker again…cannot help it…we love the machine!! With the pasta sheets that you make, you can them cut them into round skins to make dumplings. This post is more of a Picture Blog!!

Pasta sheets:

More pasta sheets:

We put a round bowl over the sheet and then used a sharp knife to cut around it to make round dumpling skins:

The noodle maker actually does come with a small dumpling maker. We did try to use it but it was teeny…you could only put one teaspoon of filling into it. It was laborious and tedious and we gave up after making about three of them. For our appetites, we would want to eat at least 50 between the two of us. It wasn’t worth the mess that it made because we tended to want to over-fill the dumpling and in the process of closing , a whole load of gooey mess would splat and splash everywhere. Splat…

After this, we took out our own dumpling maker…it is metal and a lot bigger…you can fill it with about 2 to 3 tablespoons of filling. Once you get into the swing of things, making fifty took about two hours. This would be the equivalent of about 8 meals for us. This was more fun and the larger size allowed easier filling and less splatting:

Some more dumplings:

We thought that having green dumplings looked really cool but when we fried them, they lost the colour and they just had that ubiquitous fried look. We won’t bother with the colour next time!

Okay, that is it for the dumpling blog post…something to do on a rainy day…talking of rain…it has been raining non-stop for days…

Everything Handmade in Belize.