It’s Sunday and we’ve still working on a million and one things. Gnome asked, “…where’s the fun??”
Oops, these blog posts are supposed to inspire other people to live a farming lifestyle like us.
Gnome’s working on the veranda, pulling out posts and putting them into holes. I tended to the animals (goosies and guinea pigs mostly) this morning and watered the 40 or so buckets in our garden. After that I potted some sage and tobacco plants. I’ve just been clearing a big mess in the old plant nursery where the old posts were located. There are all sorts of crap: some of the stuff is destined for the dump but I have to pick through it all to save the useful stuff…like buckets and planting bags. I stopped to make lunch (shitake and bitter gourd soup with lentils….still have to eat well despite being busy). And Gnome’s still sweating away outside knocking things together.
And now I have to pack some soap and products and….oh, and then there is the Chocolate Festival to prepare for next weekend….
So, I think that it’s time for an afternoon break. I have to keep in mind that life on a farm comes in cycles of busy and quiet and there’s no in-between!! The important thing is to pull yourself out of it once in while and remember, we’re supposed to be having fun!!
Okay, goosie time!! Look, the yellow wellies work…the goosies think that we are one of them!!
How quickly we forget that we actually had a wet “dry season” this year and it is only in the last few days that it has been unbearably hot. I say this because, the wetter weather has given the opportunity for wild mushrooms to come up around us. Some of them are edible so that is an absolute delight to us.
Just to give you a bit of a background on the adventures of M & G:
We started foraging in Scotland about 2 decades ago; we had so much fun running into the woods to find chanterelles, boletes and all manner of yummy mushrooms. We even collected enoki in the local park for breakfast every day. We still remember the time that we would secretly go into parks at 4am in the morning to tap maple trees. Oh, and we also collected and made nettle soup, dandelion salad and lots of wild greens. Outside of work (hospital, accident and emergency and all that stuff), we started calling ourselves “Munchkin and Gnome” as a personal joke. It was a conscious way of “making light of ourselves” outside our serious medical doctor demeanour.
We think that it is important not to feel self important and that’s why we call ourselves Munchkin and Gnome. Plus we think it’s funny!!
Anyway, let’s go back to the present and show you some pictures of mushrooms that we have found on our farm.
This one started off promising and we had to wait for it to open up in order to identify it properly. It ended up being the green spored parasol Chlorophyllum molybdites. It is not edible because it causes gastro-intestinal upset although David Arora, well-known mycologist with very good books, does state that some people can eat it without any stomach upset. We haven’t tried it but occasionally, Gnome will see a whole load of these and say,
“…hmmm….should we try them…what do you think?”
I usually give him a funny look and say that I don’t want to:
“We’re not starving, my dear.”
It opens up to look like this; it has green spores which is the key to its proper identification.
Parasol Mushroom.
This fungus looks like a type of mold. It doesn’t look edible but interesting to look at if you are into fungus and molds like us.
Funny Fungus on Aubergine.
This one we found eating into an old tree stump. Honey mushroom, Armillariella mellea. Edible!! Very tasty. After proper identification (we examine, take spores and go through identification keys in an obsessive sort of way) we identified it and then took a test sample to eat. Whenever we find a new mushroom that we manage to identify as edible, I take only one mushroom and cook it up (usually just sautéd in oil). We both share this tiny little morsel and wait 24 hours. If we feel fine after that, we proceed to cooking up a larger portion. We are doctors after all and we so we still have to behave responsibly with foraging and all.
Honey Mushroom.Honey Mushroom Close Up.
If you stumble across any mushrooms in Belize, Gnome would be happy to assist in identification. We would need the following information:
Pictures of the mushroom showing the top, the underside (gills) and from all angles.
Please make a Spore Print. Omit Step 5 ie. don’t spray with hairspray!!
Make a note of where you found it and where it was growing.
Note that our identification efforts are geared towards determining edibility. This is for eating and no profit. Be prepared to send us the spore print if the mushroom turns out to be edible.
The last few days, we’ve been having a bit of car trouble; we were driving back home and the fuel warning light came up. Of course, we didn’t know what that meant so Gnome had to phone up the Toyota dealership to ask them about the light. This is what he was told over the phone: get a new fuel filter, get a car mechanic to install the fuel filter and then get the mechanic to re-set the warning light. This is what Gnome did: get a fuel filter, do a Google search on “how to install a fuel filter” and “how to reset a warning light.”
There was enough information on the Internet for a Gnome, without any car mechanic skills whatsoever, to install the fuel filter. We would ordinarily have just paid to get it done but this time Gnome said to me,
“…wait a minute…between the messing around with a mechanic and paying for it, maybe it’s just easier if I have a go at doing it myself.”
And so he did. His conclusion was that generally car stuff is quite simple and straight forward and if you actually take the time to read up instructions on the Internet, you can generally get it done yourself. He did say as an after thought:
“…I’m talking about car stuff…not medical stuff…there are too many people who get on the Internet to make a self diagnosis and get it wrong.”
That for true, I can vouch for that!! Too many people using Dr Google!!
Anyway, with the car thing, I am really glad that Gnome works with the philosophy of self-reliance and he’s not afraid to learn new things all the time.
Okay, so what’s happening on the farm? Well, we have some new harvests. This is suriname cherry which has a lovely resinous taste. I have taken a picture of one pristine cherry because we seem to have something that is biting holes in all of them. I can’t spot what is causing it but I think that we have a problem with ants.
Suriname Cherry.
Some nice cayenne chilli peppers. Gnome has strung these on a string in the kitchen to dry.
Cayenne Crop.
Oh, and these are canistel. They taste like sweet potato; we actually eat this with our meals as a carbohydrate substitute. Our tree is loaded this year! Yay!!
Canistel.Canistel.
Ooooh…it is really punishingly hot right now!! Try to keep cool everyone!!
Yes, indeed, we have a happy Gnome so that really means that we also have a happy Munchkin! When we tell you what makes us satisfied with life, you’ll probably giggle and guffaw at the simplicity of our wants. Yes, indeed this ascetic life-style has made us put our lives into perspective (as there is time for quiet contemplation) and you realise that life can be fulfilled with very simple things. The meaningful things to us might not be everyone’s cup of tea! But, we do think that it’s good to develop new interests and passions all the time.
Yes, firstly…the worms…the worms…of course. Special thanks to Graham and Joyce for their assistance and friendship. Here we are:
Red Wiggler Worms.
Lovely, lovely…this stuff makes Gnome very happy:
More Worms.
Gnome has set up a wormery to increase his population. Once he is satisfied that he has enough worms, he will start his worm tower empire.
Worm Bin.
The next thing…aubergines…aubergines. We are growing the Black Beauty variety. Look at the lovely flower on this plant:
Eggplant Flower.
What’s next…ooooh Baby Goosie is a bundle of joy. We are certainly enjoying being Mama Munchkin and Papa Gnome. We even phoned up Gnome’s Mum to talk about the “baby” and how well it was eating and putting on weight. Gnome’s dad laughed at our conversation and said at last, we have a grand-child!
Goosie!!
Oh, last but not least…Gnome’s beloved tomatoes. We did experience quite a set-back from the pesky birds. I can’t look at a Montezuma oropendola without feeling self-righteous indignation! Look at what they did to our lovely tomato:
Pecked Tomato.
Anyway, Gnome’s ingenuity has out-witted them…so far, so good! Let’s give a show of hands to Gnome for his new “Hello Birdie…there’s nothing here to eat…so go away” decoy.
Tomato Protectors.
The last picture has to be these: our very own Krim tomatoes. Beautifully sweet and succulent. We just sliced them and dipped them in salt. Ahhhh…wonderful….
A while back I had a conversation with Panda (he is originally from London) about British food that we missed. It was mostly a nostalgic reminiscence of biscuits and sweets because I used to have an awfully sweet tooth. We talked about McVities Chocolate Digestives, chocolate eclairs, Turkish delight, Jaffa Cakes, After Eight Mints and a whole host of sweet treats. It just so happened that his Mum was visiting soon and so he asked her to bring some of these sweets. When she did come, I was given a lovely gift of Turkish Delight and After Eight Mints.
One of the main reasons why I am talking about this is because I have noticed that this farm lifestyle in Belize has changed my eating habits and palate. With the After Eight Mints, I didn’t scoff them all down in one go…I am sure most people would never admit to this behaviour in their own blog! I found the sugar content overwhelming so I ate one or two with a cup of tea now and then. If I ate too much, I would feel thirsty and even nauseated.
I have reduced my sugar intake drastically over the last decade so my body is no longer used to large quantities of sugar.
Just to give you an idea of my sugar intake now: it is usually a teaspoon with each cup of tea and I usually have 2 cups per day. As a general rule, I don’t often buy products, unless as a treat, and so I hardly eat any hidden sugars. I don’t bake cakes and I don’t bake biscuits. In fact, most of the sugars that we consume are in the natural form of fruit. I am a not “health conscious freak” by any stretch of the imagination. I like food and I like eating!! Rather, my change in lifestyle has changed my eating habits.
As an interesting aside, we do get the feeling that sugar content of products are based on cultural wants and tastes. For instance, we have had the ubiquitous Kit-Kat from many areas of the world. The Asian Kit-Kats have considerably less sugar than the ones bought here in Central America. Similarly, if we do buy biscuits (cookies), we will opt to buy British imported ones instead of the Guatemalan/ Mexican (Central America) stuff as, in our opinion, these biscuits are just loaded with sugar and have no flavour; we do not feel that ingesting this biscuit to get high on the sugar, whizz around for ten minutes followed by a major “down” is worth it at all!
As Doctors, we are skilled in the observation of other people doing this and we see it time and time again. It’s amazing how many people don’t seem to recognise the physiological impact of eating such foods. Instead, they just keep on doing it…if it goes on for too long…this is when you get diabetes.
Gnome always says, “…beware of the white powder…”
He means sugar.
Anyway having said all of this, I am not actually trying to get anyone to stop eating what they enjoy. Rather, food should be enjoyed…as life is enjoyed…but balance is required to achieve this.
Okay…now to the Turkish Delight which is what this post is about. As soon as I bit into my first piece of Turkish Delight, I felt the sugar run into my blood and knew that my pancreas had kicked in to squirt insulin out quick smart. It was a real sugar high; I felt my head spinning and my whole body going wobbly like jelly. It was like doing some “extreme velocity sport” but my body wasn’t going anywhere! These were my thoughts during ingestion,
“Arrrghhh!!! Way too much sugar! I used to eat this by the box??!! Arrrghhh!!!”
Anyway, I did however appreciate the aromatic rose and lemon flavours and also felt that it was a waste not to eat a gift. I thought that the intense flavour was lovely but surely there was a way to eat with fewer side effects?. This is when I thought of cutting up the Turkish Delight into small pieces and baking a bread with it. And I did:
Turkish Delight Bread.
The rose and lemon permeated through the dough to make a uniquely flavour-some bread. In other words, it was good to eat!
Turkish Delight Bread.
If you want to make this at home, just add about two cups of Turkish Delight, chopped into 1/2 inch cubes (1cm), to your favourite bread recipe.
In conclusion, I think that this farming lifestyle allows a natural progression to healthier eating. You become more sensitive to the things that you eat and in turn, you naturally stop eating crap!
I thought I might share this interesting concept with you. Gnome had planted a “Kapok” tree right at our gate, when we first moved in, just as a marker. So we wouldn’t get lost??!! It is known for its seed pods which produce a cotton-like material which can be used to stuff pillows, mattresses and the like. Moreover, the material can be woven to make fibre. It sounded like a useful tree to have around. The tree was a fast grower and in about three years, it was really, really tall…sorry for not being very technical but it just appeared to stretch right up into the sky. Because it was so tall, it was definitely not hard to miss (we always found our gate…Ha-Ha) and so it was always one of the first things that Belizeans commented upon if they chanced upon seeing us at the farm.
We were then told that this tree was known locally as a “Ceiba” tree. That makes sense since the latin name is Ceiba petandra. Further enquiries reveal that this tree is actually sacred to the Mayas. It is known as a World Tree which embodies the four cardinal directions. According to Mayan Mythology, this tree also connects the centre of the earth to the sky; it is the gateway between these two worlds. This is indeed an esoteric concept that appeals to our imagination especially when it is planted right at the Gateway to our Farm.
Ceiba Tree.
Our Gateway:
The Gate.
It really does look quite magnificent in real life, like something out of a fairy tale. Every morning, we watch the toucans on the tree making their funny ribbbitting noise.
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!!
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.
I was thinking that the best way to describe our blog is that it is a “Slice of Life.” They are snippets of conversations, ideas, farm life and our way of life. With humour thrown in for extra good measure.
This snippet is a perfect example of the Tao of Munchkin, Gnome and Panda.
The other day, Panda came at 8am in the morning to assist Gnome in the construction of a bamboo shelter for growing potatoes. There was no pre-amble and “let’s have a cup of tea first, mate.” Gnome and Panda went off to the bamboo to cut and haul. Everything was measured to the correct size. Holes were dug in the ground and work was done without the need for idle chit-chat.
The structure was made in 6 hours (separated into two mornings of 3 hours). Panda, still new to the “The Way of Munchkin and Gnome” kinda looked at us funny and asked politely what farm work had to be done for the afternoons.
Munchkin reply:
“Our farming way of life encompasses a way of life. It is not about working like a dog for 8 hours a day…”
Gnome added,
“It’s all about doing what you want to do…with focus, discipline and motivation.”
So Gnome suggested that Panda take the extra cut bamboo home and, “have fun with it…make something cool…maybe some blinds or something.”
Panda, who happens to like working with bamboo (well, he is a Panda after all) was very pleased that this way of life also offered creativity and leisure:
“This is great. I like that! I’m off then!”
He said this as he slung the bamboo poles over his shoulder.
