So we continue with The Chinese New Year celebrations. Yes, it can keep on going for about two weeks…yay!! To honour the new year, Gnome gave me a brand new wheelbarrow. Oooooh….and it’s red too so very, very auspicious. This is a big deal for me because I’ve been using this wheelbarrow for years when it should have been thrown out years ago.
Old Wheelbarrow.
Brand New Lucky Wheelbarrow:
New Wheelbarrow.
Great, so now I can use this to cart veggies and greens from our new mini garden. We’ve set this up for the dry season since we don’t have huge resources to irrigate over this period of time. In years past, we’ve usually eaten chaya, which is drought resistant.
Chaya.
But of course, variety is the spice of life!! Now we have endives, rocket, bok choi, parsley, Krim tomatoes, bitter gourd, horseradish, eggplant and jalapeños. All set to load onto my wheelbarrow for Munchkin yummies!! All Aboard The Munchkin Express!!
Hello and Happy Chinese New Year to y’all!! It’s the Year of the Rooster by the way, which means action, taking the chance and getting things done properly. Probably means other things too so best if you go read it up yourself…I don’t claim to be a Horoscope Munchkin. Today has been an auspicious day for us on the farm. Look!! We have 8 (Auspicious Number for Chinese) eggs to incubate. Last night we followed the duckies around, nonchalantly of course, and found their secret nest.
Yes, my evolved duckies, we know you’re hiding something from us:
Secret Duckie Nest in Bush:
Secret Egg Site.
We found 6 eggs last night and then 2 this morning. Lucky 8!! Try this number for Boledo today!!
Hello, Munchkin here again! We had a terrible week of heavy rains and now it’s starting to get drier. I shouldn’t complain but I will! I’ve been having an awful time trying to get things done on the farm because it is sooooo wet. I just end up getting covered in water, mud, dirt and feeling sorry for myself. The other day, I thought of a mantra to keep myself going and it went like this: “I am a store-house of creativity….I am a store-house of creativity….I am a store-house of creativity.” Ha-Ha, I need to laugh at myself now because when I actually write it down, it sounds like a repetitive loop which totally lacks lustre and inventiveness!
Anyway, yesterday, whilst walking around on the farm, caked in wetness and dirt, I wasn’t exactly feeling great. Instead of the mantra, I was wailing and flailing with occasional huffing and puffing!! Gnome hid behind a tree nearby and stuck his yellow welly out at me and said cheekily:
“Munchkin!! Are you a store-house of creativity??!!”
He guffawed and laughed at my mantra whilst shaking about in a little dance. His yellow wellies were flailing up in the air…dare I say…like River Dance. It was such a stupid sight that I did have to laugh and that snapped me out of my dourness. So, I did get stuff done (happily) in the end…
Transplanted the tomato plants:
Tomato Seedlings.
Cleaned the Pigtail buckets…I get these from town and they start piling up under the house until I get fed up and do a huge wash up.
Pigtail Bucket.
Did the laundry in the Gnomified washing machine:
Spent some quality time with the little creatures on the farm. Whilst doing all that, I forgot about repeating the mantra and just got on with it. Better when the brain doesn’t get in the way sometimes!!
The beginnings were delicate times when we first set about procuring our first generation of guinea pigs. We were looking for new blood, so-to-speak, and made a long and arduous journey crossing borders by sea and by road, to gain our progeny. Our first piggies were only about 12 weeks old; a long-haired tawny brown called “The Kid,” a blonde girlie named “Honey” and of course, the Grandmother of all our Piggies: Vanessa aka Stumpy. Vanessa suffered a fracture of her tibia during the transportation and had a successful below knee amputation once she reached the safe house. Lovely Grandma Stumpy out-lived the other two original piggies and went on to produce generations for us. She lived a very good life and died a couple of years ago; Grandma Stumpy you will always live on in our memories.
GrandMa Stumpy.
The original concept of guinea pig rearing was for food. We had seen some rather tempting Peruvian guinea pig dishes (mostly fried in batter like fried chicken) and thought that they might be rather tasty. The first houses were coined “The Hanging Gardens of Babylon” because they were wire cages suspended from rafters. A few generations of piggies started in this first construction but it finally had to discarded after doggy sabotage. The dog would spring up from her hind legs and attempt to break the bottom of the cages with her teeth. She was eventually successful and had a feast with quite a few of them.
Meanwhile, we attempted also to sample the fine epicurean delights of guinea pig. This is Piggies Cooked in Mead:
Three Piggies Cooking in Mead.
I have written on the finer points of cleaning guinea pig carcass in previous posts so I won’t go into the detail. They are actually quite bony so actually provide a good skin for stuffing….in this case, these piggies were stuffed with marinated pork meat. Anyway, it did taste good but it was a lot of hard work. Besides, we didn’t feel quite right about eating our cute and cuddly pets. They looked so harmless and helpless…yes, we felt like such awful predators!
Cheery Guinea Pig.
After some philosophical talks and drinking of mead, we decided that the eating of piggies did not sit right for us. So what to do with them? We feel that everything on our farm should have a purpose.
For some time, we used them like cows and put them on a movable cage so that we could have sections of grass mowed naturally. There was an upstairs and ramps to go downstairs to eat grass. Gnome’s idea of course!
Guinea Pig Mower.
This was dubbed the gated community of “Paradise Pastures” and lasted quite a while. The cage was rather heavy so proved quite a chore to move. But alas, we hit a snag with the dog….there is a whole story with this one. Anyway, the dog dug a hole in the ground and managed to get her paws into the cage!
Okay, then we had to re-model the cage with security features: we decided on a condo type resort thing with majestic hilltop views but no access to the bottom.
Piggie Condos.
There was a lot of unhappiness, squeaking and squawking and general mayhem with the new changes. The piggies couldn’t find a purpose on the farm. We even set up a dance/yoga studio for them with there own teacher:
Johnny Daybreeze.
Nah…that didn’t work either. Finally….and this is where they are now…they have been placed with the Zazen Duckies in the Zen Garden.
Piggies in Zen Garden.
And then we had a surprise hatching of a lone duckie last month:
Duckie!!
Munchkin and Gnome did their best to do Duckie Parenting and placed lone duckie in the guinea pig crèche:
Duckie and Piggies.
It has worked out so well. Duckie house-cleans for the piggies by eating up the grubs and creepy crawlies and learns to eat greens with them. They are all friends and get along very well. Duckie is getting bigger with the house cleaning:
Duckie Growing Up!
So, because of the success of this pilot project we have decided to incorporate the piggies into the cycle of duckling rearing. This is because our mallard ducks are not good mothers (very scatty, forgetful and silly…no, I mean that they are usually too busy meditating!). The piggies have a new purpose on the farm now!!
It’s been a good start to the new year because the weather has been dry and sunny (except for today, of course, there are rain clouds and it feels like it wants to rain). Anyway, with the good weather, we felt uplifted and ready to start the new year full of energy and enthusiasm. Well, it started off with Gnome fixing the washing machine! Yay, we have clean clothes now!! I’ve been doing a big spring clean inside the house and throwing all sorts of kipple and the like. It’s a lovely feeling dumping things and making a great big fire…whoopeeeeee!!
Kipple…stuff…just multiplies!!
Kipple
Anyway, Gnome has been doing some manly, physical work (so, I’ve been very nice to him…bringing out cool lemonade and dainty egg sandwiches to keep him going). He is setting up the platforms for our water tanks. This time we will be ready for the dry season and we won’t be caught out. We will have our tanks lined up to catch the rains from now to April.
Water Security!!
Water Tank.
And as usual the farm has been producing so there is the usual Munchkin harvesting….
These are Monkey Cap; the taste like peanut butter and have the consistency of peanut butter. They are nice but kinda get stuck in your teeth because they are gummy-like. Don’t eat them when you have guests around or you’ll get into a right old mess with orange gums and teeth…Ha-Ha! I wasn’t trying to put you off this fruit by the way!
Monkey Cap.
We hope that the year is starting off well for y’all out there!!
Hello, everyone, here’s an update on our surprise lone duckie that came out of a failed incubator project (because the cat sat on the incubator!). Yes, I know, the pitfalls of having animals on a farm!!
Duckie!!
Just to give you a quick background on our duckies, of the mallard type, we had to incubate the eggs because these ducks refused to set. Aha…you might say (if you know anything about the duckie world)…Why didn’t you use the local broody ducks (of the Muscovy type) to set? And, Aha once again…the pitfalls of having animals on the farm…we have a dog with a ferocious appetite for muscovy ducks!
Anyway, to get to the point: we have, in the past, incubated duck eggs with success. However, we found ourselves somewhat at a loss in being duckie parents. We were inexperienced, young and ignorant of The Way of The Duckie Dabble. The result was a bunch of useless duckies waiting for corn mash at the end of each day with no knowledge of eating the good things in life like slugs, caterpillars, ants, creepy crawlies and grass. What a disaster!!
Anyway, we have spent many a day observing The Way of The Duckie Dabble and this is the All New Munchkin & Gnome Classical Duckie Education.
It’s important to keep duckie in a safe, warm environment where he can freely survey the outside world. We used a fish tank with a 100 watt bulb.
Warm Secure Environment.
2. Spend lots and lots of quality time with duckie. At Day 2, Start him on a diet of protein (we used boiled eggs) and lots of chopped greens. Let him splash about in a bowl of water like a duckie.
Splashing Duckie.
3. From Day 3, allow supervised walks so he gets used to pecking at creepy crawlies and eating green things. According to Gnome, it helps to wear yellow wellies so that he thinks you are just one of his kind!
Supervised Duckie Walks.Wear Yellow Wellies.
4. Introduce Duckie to other farm members in a controlled manner:
Meet the Cat.
5. It is of utmost importance in a Duckie Classical Education to introduce other animals (or cultures) into his everyday world as quickly as possible. From Day 7, take Duckie to the Piggie Creche (9am to 5pm) for pre-school education. This will enable fluency in a foreign language at a young age.
It’s that time of the year again. The Christmasy feeling is a bit more down-to earth here in Punta Gorda, Belize. You don’t get the awful (or perhaps nostalgic for some) ’80’s Festive songs blaring out of shops…you know what I mean: “Last Christmas,” and “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” and all that. I heard them at Brodie’s (in the big city) last week and it finally clicked that it was Christmas time again. Not here, it’s pure down here with none of that manufactured, marketed stuff around. What Bliss! Anyway, let’s talk about plants because that’s what I like talking about.
About a month ago, a friend give us some seeds from Guatemala and they are coming up.
These are Santol; Sandoricum koetjape. This is a Southeast Asian fruit that looks a bit peachy and tastes a bit peachy…according to Wiki…not with these words of course…they were a bit more eloquent.
Santol Seedlings.
These are Langsat; Lansium parasiticum. Another Southeast Asian fruit that looks a bit like a lychee but tastes like grapefruit/grape. I never believe these taste quantifying reports by the way. They might as-well say that they taste like chicken. I’m going to wait until I get the fruit bearing in 5 years and see if it’s grapefruit or grape or something else!!
Langsat Seedlings.
These ones are from a different friend and very, very much appreciated too!
Oooooh Durian; if you have been in Asia, you would have smelt the lovely aroma of durian. We managed to sprout 3 out of 4 of these seeds. So excited because these are “The King of Fruit” in Asia. We’ve got to wait 5 to 10 years for the fruit!!
Durian Seeds.
Galangal root; this is an Indonesian rhizome from the Ginger Family. It has more of a camphor-like taste. Great for teas and curries.
You may have wondered if Panda was still around. Yes he is…he’s just waiting for the right conjunction of stars to write something. Yes, he’s a bit like that. Anyway, he’s trying to learn to live on a farm and to find a practical way to live. We are giving him some guidance and occasionally a kick up the backside to move him along.
This is because, when we started, we made so many mistakes and now we feel that with a few pointers in the right places, it would not have taken us so long to set things up. On hindsight, I would advise anyone wanting to live a self-sustainable farming life-style to start with the following things: power, water, security and access. Now I know it sounds so obvious but it wasn’t obvious to us as silly wannabee farmers.
We totally messed up, at the beginning and didn’t even consider these most important concepts. Instead, we bought a billy goat (a very rude one at that) without fencing the property and ended up tying him up on our veranda. Those were the days when we sat down to have a cup of tea and Horatio (the goat) would attempt to clobber Gnome whilst in the act of obscene gesticulations. Gnome would clobber him back and this went on for a while until we realised our priorities in setting up a decent farm life.
So, Panda does not need to learn our goat lesson. Since he has power and water, we have moved him swiftly onto “security.” This involves chopping the front fence line and planting pandanus plants as a natural barrier. Anyway, we went to have a look at Panda’s efforts today. We noticed a few problems; his fence-line, that he has chopped, is all wiggly and not in a straight line. He also hasn’t chopped enough width to allow the pandanus to grow and he did not take into consideration that part of the land, outside of the fence-line, is public right of way. His line weaves in and out in a meandering kinda way.
Bushy Fence Line.
Panda has to re-visit this chore and cut a straight line within the land and chop at least 2 metres wide to allow the fence-line plants to grow. That is no mean feat! Gnome told him that there was a lesson to be learned in this: prior to this, we advised Panda not to hire help for this particular job. We said this because we needed him to realise what chopping with a machete really meant; we needed him to do some real work. Panda may choose now to hire a worker for this job but he will do this with respect and gratitude. All too often, we meet many people who hire, in a nonchalant way, stating that their main reason is to “help the locals.” We would like to urge Panda to have a less superior attitude and adopt a more balanced, symbiotic attitude with hired workers. I think he got the lesson.
We have a Baby!! Yes, against all odds we have a baby duckie! We haven’t had much luck with the duckie breeding program because of gender issues (this is true, by the way, the male duck paired up with a male goose and wouldn’t have anything to do with the female ducks). Anyway, we have a new drake on the block that is satisfying the harem of ducks. However, none of the ducks wanted to set so Gnome made an incubator.
We put 12 eggs in the incubator (Gnome-rigged, of course with temperature control) last month and eagerly waited. Gnome candled them at the beginning and all of them seemed to be viable. Towards the end of the incubation period (takes 28 days to hatch), disaster struck when we realised that the cat had been jumping on top of the incubator because it was such a comfy warm spot, causing the temperature to fluctuate, subsequently spoiling the eggs. We were so disappointed and gave up on the project as an “act of cat.” However, there was one egg we had put in 5 days later than the rest which was due to hatch today…we woke up this morning to:
“…peep….peep…peep.”
Yes, we have one lone duckie! Awwwhhhh….soooooo cute….
New Baby Duckie!
Another baby picture:
Duckie!!
We have set up an emergency brooding area in a fish tank with a 100 watt lamp to keep it warm. He’s just had his first feed and seems to be doing okay! A bit lonely but we are keeping it company…
