The parts finally arrived for the brush-mower and Gnome has managed to install the new parts. A big Thank-you to Joanna Randolph for sending us the parts. Now, the mower no longer looks like a “bird’s nest” of wires at the back:
Back Of Brush-Mower.
The ignition works (so no more hot-wiring) and it all looks very tidy with all the wires in place:
Wiring Replaced.
Everything is now working:
Brush Mower Working.
And also the chainsaw has been fixed:
Chainsaw Fixed.
The Zazen Duckie pond has been partially filled with the rains from yesterday. Next will be the fencing for the Zen Garden:
Pond Filling.
And, while Gnome is effortlessly doing all the above like a Super-Hero farmer, I think I will bake some panettone ;)! Received these in the post from Joanna as a belated Birthday present…yay and many thanks!! I may need a few tries before I get a perfect picture to post up on the Blog!
Everyday for the last two weeks, Gnome has been digging out a pond for the Duckies. When Gnome was asked what machinery was used in the pond construction (I think they were expecting some sort of excavator in the answer) he replied with:
“A spade.”
Gnome Magic!
The pond is situated in the middle of the Zen garden and lined with rocks. Since the weather has been so dry, we were a bit dubious over whether it would get filled with rainwater. I mentioned to Gnome with a twinkle in my eye:
“…well, since it is a Zen Garden, can we fill the pond with sand and rake ripples into it? Do you think the Duckies would notice?”
No need to worry though…we had a constant drizzle today and the pond is getting nicely filled up.
Zazen Duckie Pond.
Oh, and we have to thank our doggy for helping Gnome every morning. She apparently thinks that a wheelbarrow should be pulled along by grasping the wheel with her teeth and dragging it along. What a funny dog she is! Gnome couldn’t resist shouting out to me to take a photograph…this is a picture of her in action.
We had our usual town day today and then stopped off at the hardware store to purchase one connector and a roll of teflon tape. These were two crucial pieces that were missing in the air-lift pump construction that stopped us from completing the full Gnome-Rig yesterday.
Gnome put the missing piece in and switched on the air-compressor. There was a moment of silence as we stared at the pipe coming out of the well. All of a sudden there was the glorious sound of water shooting out of the pipe…YAY!!! Hip Hip Hooray!! Respect To The Gnome. He Gnome-Rigged an air-lift pump all by himself!
We Have Water!
And then at Gnome’s finest moment, the clouds gathered together above our house with the inevitable Sod’s Law rain. Ha-Ha!!
Rain Clouds.
We celebrated with a glass of vernaccia; Gnome says that this particular wine that he has made tastes like local (vernacular) Sardinian wine which has a sherry like quality.
Vernaccia in Glasses.
Mmmm…what a lovely way to celebrate. A little bit of sunshine in a glass.
This morning Gnome woke up with a start. He had a furtive look about him like a squirrel and his eyes were kinda bulging as he said,
“I know it! We will find the air-compressor in PG!”
I processed his statement in with a pinch of salt as I tried to shake myself out of my sleepy state. I yawned and then cheekily replied with,
“Oh, Neo Gnome…has the oracle spoken?”
In the back of my mind I was thinking that he was just trying to find any excuse not to take the three hour drive to the city to procure this contraption for our well-pump.
He said it again,
“I know it! It’s at Mac’s!”
I yawned and patiently said slowly,
“How do you know that? Where? We’ve never set foot in that shop before…”
With conviction in his words, Gnome said,
“I can feel it…”
I rolled my eyes with my usual derisive Chinese woman look and thought to myself…oh to live with a sensitive Italian Gnome who can “feel” things…what next. I didn’t believe him but I thought it best to humour him.
And so off we went into town and enroute, I made him go into every hardware store to look for a portable air compressor. I wanted to delay the inevitable…the disappointment and then the long tedious journey to Belmopan. None to be found and the last place was Mac’s Shop which is a little run-down shop selling mostly second-hard hardware. The road was blocked so we had to make it on foot. Guess what we saw as soon as we entered…
Portable Air Compressor.
Gnome rushed over the machine and said out loud,
“There it is! I told you!”
Well, there it was and there was no denying that he was right. Gnome’s premonition was correct. I laughed to myself and thought…all this solitary time in the bush must be activating secret Gnome powers…Ha-Ha. I’ve been watching too many crappy Super-hero movies!! If Hollywood ever make a film about Munchkin and Gnome, in the bush, developing special powers, I want Maggie Q to play me! Too Funny.
Anyway back to reality…
We now have a portable air-compressor and Gnome is putting together all the bits to make the Air-lift pump..
Gnome Rigging Bits.
He has been messing around with PVC pipe, hoses, bits and pieces and stuff (oh, how technical of me) all afternoon:
Getting The Pipe Down.
Nearly accomplished but we are missing a connector. So, watch this space for the next thrilling installment! Will Munchkin and Gnome get their well-pump working again? Will they be able to do it before all the water runs out? Oh the thrills and spills of living on a farm!! Oh, and what if Gnome really has super-hero powers??
It was quite a while when we had discovered that our well pump was broken…apparently by a frog getting caught in it and sliming up the whole contraption (remember the thrilling installment of Pump Vs Frog??). Anyway, we have been thankfully saved time and time again by the Toledo rains. Lately we have been getting dry season weather…you know, that stifling heat with some young plants starting to wilt in the ground. Our water supply is fast dwindling and we are now on red alert ie. back on bucket washes and hand-washing clothes (boo-hoo). What a life…living in Paradise. Anyway, it is about time we started sorting out the water situation!
Well Water Tank.
We have decided to replace the whole mechanism of pumping with an air compressor. This utilises the “air-lift” effect which was a Gnome brain-storm; just so happens to be more elegant plus you can buy all the parts here (which is very important if you live in Belize). Basically, compressed air goes down which in turn, displaces water upwards.
Now to find an air compressor and would you believe it…none to be found in the Toledo region. Looks like we are going to have to take a trip to the big city to get all the equipment. We have to get this done quickly or we will be out of water within a week or less. It’s a race against time!
Just a quickie to let you know that we are back on-line. We were up at 5am this morning in preparation for the technicians coming to change our antenna. We had to be ready for them because the antenna was attached to a 45 foot pole!!
Gnome on the Roof at 6am.Three Men and a Gnome.
They told us to receive them at 8am prompt; they arrived at 9.15am. One of the guys had to drive back into town because they forgot the antenna!! Anyway, it took half an hour to change the antenna and three and a half hours to find the signal. They actually ended up lowering the post to 30 feet to get a signal! The signal comes off the main tower in a pyramidal shape so the further you are away from the tower (but still within range) the height of the receiving antenna actually becomes lower. So, now our Internet is working better because we have a good signal!!
Yay!! You will be getting our regular posts again!!
Hello Everyone! Just something short and sweet because I am knackered. I have been doing some spring cleaning and I am gutting out the house. It is absolutely amazing how much stuff accumulates because we keep everything in the vain hope that one day it might come in useful. In my opinion, it never does because you always forget about it or you can’t find it! Chaos reigns…
I have to pull this face again because the day started thus:
The day began with Gnome trying to make “Secret Gnome Stuff” and he chucked a maddy when he couldn’t find his ¼ inch chisel. He was doing his “Hokey-Cokey” again with his left foot in and his right foot in and shaking it all about! I thought he was going to explode.
At this point, I need to point out an important house rule that we have. We can “ chuck a maddy” but the cardinal rule is, only one person at a time. That way, we don’t get into too much trouble with one offering kind support. So, it was his turn this time so I proposed to remedy the situation by buying a chisel.
So off we ran into town.
How mad is that?? By that time we reached town, Gnome had claimed back most of his faculties (although his hair was a bit boofy and his eyes were bulging somewhat) and was starting to speak a bit more coherently. We went into the Farm Store to buy the chisel; they only had a 3/8 inch chisel which Gnome promptly bought because I shot the Chinese woman look of “we came all the way into town…you better damn well buy it!” The main bossie of the store hailed me and said that our Pet Soap was sold out and he placed an order with me. That was a bonus at least.
So, left to his own devices, Gnome made his secret stuff. He won’t tell me what it is. He thinks that it keeps the romance alive to have mystery between us!! I am sure he will write a post on this one.
Other mystery Gnome stuff…some kind of mound with smelly fermented stuff and cardboard. Gnome won’t allow me near it…I will let you know once I figure it out.
Secret Gnome Business.
Anyway, since we can’t find anything and we are literally tripping over buckets everywhere, I have decided to do a big clean up. I am chucking out lots of stuff to get some space around here! It feels somewhat liberating…
After last week’s tragic case in which three young guinea pigs were snatched from the gated community, life has not been the same for the citizens of Paradise Pastures.
Mayor Gnome offered his condolences for the two lost babies. A gift of fresh grass was given to the community:
A Gift of Grass For The Piggies.
This was not enough to sweeten the Piggies as all hell broke loose soon after with squabbling, squeaking, squealing and general mis-conduct. Two days ago, the surviving baby guinea pig tragically passed away:
Piggy Chloe.
Mayor Gnome’s attempt at a Filibuster was met by angry Piggie wild fire. The community of Paradise Piggies demanded immediate action and resolution.
Our Mayor Gnome has come good and restored confidence to the Paradise Piggies! He has built 4 new luxury condominiums and one of them is the maternity ward:
Piggie Maternity Ward.Official Piggie Inspection of Condos.
The Piggies are absolutely delighted by this new and hurried construction and they feel that they can “re-build” the community from here. There was a heart-felt gurgle of pleasure when they inspected the facility. And, in addition to this, Mayor Gnome has installed a delinquent “time out” area to house hooligan piggies. This is called Southpointe:
I think our local stingless bees are really cute, the species I have nesting in one of my old tool boxes is Tetragonisca angustula…
Tetragonista angustula in one of my old toolboxes.
They are nice and friendly and you don’t need any fancy beekeeping equipment since they don’t sting. It seems like a better start to beekeeping to me than going for Africanized Bees.
They don’t make much honey apparently, only about 1kg a year but what they do make is supposed to be very medicinal…which is right up my alley. They are also good pollinators for assorted crops.
Anyway, the point of all of this is that I made a couple of beehives in order to get this project underway…
Finished Hive.
Yeah, I know, it doesn’t look like much and I suck at taking photographs (but I am better at stitching up your face with some 7/0 prolene, thankfully…sorry doctor joke!).
I’m playing catch-up today…the Internet connection failed for twenty-four hours (this is not that unusual where we are) but it is back again this morning (aaaah, couldn’t check Stats for a whole day…this is way too addictive!!!).
Managed to finish the Guinea Pig Cage after five days of work. The finished cage picture is going to go under this paragraph but I couldn’t get a good picture this morning since the sun is in the way right now, so I’m going to plug it in later when I can get a better one. It shows all the welded wire in place, the piggies themselves and the two sheets of roofing; one metal for shade and one out of plastic to let some sunlight in (so they don’t become Vitamin D deficient!).
The Famous Turtle-Blancanoux-Bel-Campo-Wild-Orchid-Eco-Agro-Tourist-Rainforest-Canopy Hotel/Spa/Resort for the Discerning Piggie in its full glory ($2000 per night!).
The piggies seem happy but they haven’t figured out how to use the “stairway/ramp” yet, so they are staying on the second floor, and consequently eating the huge amount of grass we have to keep on collecting. I’m going to see how long it is going to take them to figure out that they have forty square feet of delicious, high-protein perennial peanut (Arachis pintoi) twelve inches under them.
Satisfied Customers at our New Resort, enjoying the organic, farm fresh produce for dinner.
