Yes, time to get Crepuscular. This means that you get up at the crack of dawn, have a cup of tea and run out to do farm chores and then run back into the cool of the house before noon-time. Resting time is until it cools down again…about 4pm…then you run out again to do the end-of-the-day chores. This is the rhythm that we get into as dry season approaches. Gnome has got the brush-mower out and is cleaning up:
Filling up the Bush-Hog.
The Bush:
Bush!!
Of course, Munchkin work involves less heavy stuff but still keeps me fit and healthy. I am making use of my new wheel-barrow to collect soil for the garden. We are starting fennel today…the bulbs and the wild type. Yum…can’t wait…they are a favourite!
Munchkin’s Wheelbarrow.
More harvests on the farm…we have Barbados Gooseberry…time to make more jam!!
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!!
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!!
We’ve had a lovely Festive Season this time and I made a tremendous effort to keep the celebrations going on the farm with lots of yummy food. Here are pictures of some Munchkin goodies:
Sorghum and coconut flour flat bread with Swiss cheese and bird peppers:
Flat Bread Hors D’oeuvres.
More flat bread hors d’oeuvres with sapodilla sauce and blue cheese (more Bird Peppers to add heat and give the Christmas colour!):
Sorghum Bread and Sapodilla Sauce.
For Christmas, we had ham this time, unconventionally with sorghum and vegetables and home-made sour peach jam.
Sorghum, Ham and Sour Peach Jam.
Ooooh, lots of this…Ribena and Rum!! When I was a kid, Ribena was the stuff that we had with our packed lunches at school…a kid’s drink. Now, we are grown ups, we have it as an adult’s drink! By the way, Ribena is a British cordial made from black currants.
Ribena And Rum.
For the New Year, I decided to do Chinese for a change. This is tripe with calamondin.
Tripe and Calamondin.
Also, we had Venison with Lotus Root. And a yummy sauce made from home-made chocolate miso, calamondin zest and bird pepper.
Venison with Lotus Root.
Okay, we’ve had our fun!! Now, back to work diggin’ in the dirt!!
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.
Every morning, one of the first things that I do is to harvest food for the day and usually just enough for the day so it stays fresh…no need to be shoving anything in the fridge. Actually we only have a tiny fridge for pharmaceuticals…no veggies, fruit and condiments allowed! Morning harvest:
Farm Harvest.
The leafy greens are chaya and to the front are some carambola (starfruit). The round yellow fruit, at the back are sour peach. The banana leaf has some wild mushroom (Schiziphylum commune). So, Gnome asked me:
Hello Munchkin here and I am still munching through the edible ornamentals. This one is Pereskia aculeata also known as Barbados Gooseberry. In a specific area of Brazil, Minas Gerais, it is known as ora-pro-nobis; here, the plant is cultivated for its edible leaves. The leafy green is high in vitamins, minerals and amino acids. Because of its high nutritional value, there has been research into using the dried leaf in bread and sausage making. I like to put this in our miso soup.
Ora Pro Nobis Leaves.
The fruit is round, orange in colour and has the taste and consistency of a gooseberry. It looks like an orange gooseberry actually!
More Barbados Gooseberry.Barbados Gooseberry.
You can eat them as they are or use them in jams and preserves. They have a fruity tartness. Oh, but last but not least, the flowers are really pretty on this cactus:
Barbados Gooseberry Flower.Pereskia aculeata. Flowers and Fruit.
Anyone interested in buying a plant? Let me know and I will bag some in the new year. Cheers!!
Hello!! This is Munchkin and yes, I logged in right this time. I am still pulling this face…so, I still feel like I’m holding the fort up on this blog. Munchkin Power!!
Just to let you know, in case you haven’t guessed already, the only plants that we like to have on our farm are edible or useful plants. Sorry, not just into pretty ornamentals that you can’t eat. But here’s a plant that serves many purposes and is also nice to look at. This is Canna indica (aka achira):
Canna indica
There are a whole host of other names including Indian arrowroot, African arrowroot and edible canna. We first read about this plant when we were looking into the possibility of using plants as a sewage filtration system …this has been characterised by the use of reeds…reed bed system. When we considered reeds, Gnome had said:’‘Mmmmm…you can’t really eat reeds….is there something else that can be more useful?”
After some more research, we discovered that this beautiful ornamental has been used for the treatment of industrial waste waters and has proven to remove high organic loads from waste water. Wow!! What a useful plant…one that we can incorporate into an organic waste disposal system!
And another wonderful thing is that you can eat the root of this plant raw, baked or cooked. I haven’t tried it yet but I assure you that it is one of the “must-eat”foods on the Munchkin list. Does anyone want to buy a plant? If you do, let me know and I will have some bagged in the new year! Cheers!!
Hello!! If you follow the adventures of Munchkin and Gnome, you will know that we are keen foragers and planters. We also like to cook food in unusual and interesting ways…Munchkin Magic or Cookery Sans Fontiers. Firstly, let’s tell you how we found our sorghum seeds. We were driving on the Highway out of Belize City and Gnome all of a sudden screeched to a halt. Luckily, there were no cars about. He quickly ran out of the car and jumped up and down with glee when he found this growing by the side of the road:
Sorghum on the Road.
We took the seeds and planted them:
Sorghum on our Farm.
Sorghum is generally considered an animal feed in Belize and in most other countries. It is however seen as a human staple in some parts of Africa and India. It has a protein content of 11% (corn has 9%) with B Vitamins, Niacin, B6 and manganese.
Sorghum.
Anyway, Gnome charged me with the cooking of these grains. He basically said:
“Do something tasty with this, my dear…”
So I did. And WE LOVE SORGHUM!! It’s tasty, yummy, versatile, has a nutty flavour and can be eaten in lots of different ways. It tastes a bit like risotto but with more bite to it. Here is a picture gallery of some of our sorghum meals; recipes will come later. Ooooh….we are so pleased with this great foraging find which has allowed us to experience such a delicious food. Ahhhh….we feel blessed with our farm.
Sorghum with Lentils and Potatoes.Sorghum with French Onion Soup.Chicken with Sorghum Breadcrumbs.Sorghum and Veggies.
Yes, we are eating sorghum everyday and not getting bored with it!
