Belize, Farming

Still Very Wet!

It is still wet and boggy outside; farm work is at a minimum right now with feeding the geese and harvesting of food for daily meals. I know that I shouldn’t be such a big moan but this is also mosquito, bot-fly and noseem time which adds to the difficulties of getting outside. That’s life…and sometimes it can be quite uncomfortable!! Anyway, needless to say, we are waiting for a spot of dry weather to get out there to mow.

Rain!!

Meanwhile, I have been looking after our Ol’ Grandfather Goosie; I am not sure how old he is but I am estimating 18 to 25 years. He has been with us right from the very start and that is the main reason why he is so special to us. He’s getting on a bit and is now blind in one eye; I think that geese can live to about 25 to 30 years…though some literature boasts of geese living for 100 years. His other eye is also giving problems (cataract) so it is hard for him to forage for food. He can see things like big kernels of corn or dog food but it is hard for him to keep up with the rest of the wily geese. These days, I find that he is eating dirt most of the time because of poor sight. A couple of months ago, I found him stuck in a hole, wedged between concrete blocks. It was a good thing that he honked faintly so that I found him…otherwise being stuck out in the sun all day…he would have eventually died of dehydration. Anyway, I have had to keep a close eye on him lately because he tends to lose weight rapidly; he is now getting his own dedicated food and from time to time, he requires “geriatric” admission for food and water.

Grandfather Goosie.

Grandfather Goosie has just had a three day admission; he still has a great appetite and will chomp away until his crop looks like a pendulous appendage. He will be wormed today and we will let him out to forage during the day.

Let’s hope that Grandfather Goosie lives to 100 years old!! I will probably write more often since I am stuck indoors with the rains!!

Belize, Farming, Food, Plants

What a Miserable Day!

Yes it is that month of the year again when its wet, it rains a lot and it gets really boring. July is just awful because it rains all month and we are virtually stuck indoors. This month we have kept ourselves out of trouble with indoor work. Gnome has been working on tiling the back veranda and I have been cleaning up the inside of the house. Because we are in the middle of everything, the place looks like a bomb has hit it. Our task is to move the indoor kitchen out onto the back veranda to give us more room to prepare and cook food. It appears that processing, preparing and eating well is central to our lives on the farm. What else is there to do!!

Today was a particularly miserable day with all day rains. There are puddles everywhere:

Big Puddle.

Oh well…since we have had copious amounts of indoor time, we have both been doing our share of creative cooking. Gnome tends to do more Italian-style slow cooking. Here are some pictures of food that we have been eating.

We are so thankful for this quiet time that we have together and extremely grateful for the delicious food that we have everyday. Thanks to the Farm for producing and nourishing us.

We had Gnome’s fresh pasta sauce with our home-made pasta:

Gnome’s Fresh Pasta Sauce.

A meal with our chocolate pasta…oooh, and our lovely ducky eggs:

Chocolate Pasta Meal.


Fresh Greens From the Farm.

The rains are really helping the vegetables grow in abundance…I can’t really complain, can I? 😉

More Fresh Vegetables.

This is one of my meals: osso buco, wild rice (sorry…not ours…but planning to grow a patch of rice in the future) and steamed greens.

Munchkin Meal.

Okay, I actually have lots more food pictures to show you. I will leave it at that right now. Hope that you are all have a relaxing weekend!

Belize, Food

Back Online

Hello Again! We haven’t had Internet for two weeks because the antenna fell down from the twenty foot pole. We had a very stormy night…we heard the rush of the wind through the walls, clattering and banging of things in the yard and then something “big” falling down and bouncing about to and fro. We didn’t go outside because it was the middle of the night and deferred to the morning to assess the damage. It wasn’t too bad; luckily the antenna was still intact and didn’t fall into the big tank of water!

Fallen Internet Antenna.

Well, after that day we continued to have wet days. It was too slippery and wet for Gnome to climb up the ladder, climb onto the roof and attach the antenna back onto the pole. We waited until the first bright and sunny day to get the Internet antenna back. Hurray for Gnome for the bravery required in climbing on top of the house. I must say that we were both okay without Internet…no fits of rage or frustration! After two weeks, we down-loaded all 300+ emails and only two of them were semi-important. We realised that we hadn’t missed much at all. We do have Internet but the connection is slower because the antenna might not be pointing in exactly the right direction…downloading is slower so our communications are still not perfect!

Anyway, what has been happening. We did finally get the flood flies; ironically, we were ready for them up until the day they came and ironically enough, I had just spoken to Gnome’s Mother about “…not having flood flies this year.” My last picture was titled Flood Flies 2016 because for the last two years, we have managed to close up in time to avoid them. We got caught out this time…here is a picture of Flood Flies 2019:

Flood Flies 2019.

We got caught out this time because dinner had not been “ready-made” on the stove as it had been for the two weeks waiting for the fateful day! I had decided to make yum-yums because we had harvested our first giant aubergine (they get to about 2lbs in weight). I was in the middle of making deep-fried aubergine sandwiches filled with mozzarella when the little buggers came winging their way towards our house. Ha-Ha!! We ate our yum-yums in the dark with flood flies flying and crawling around everywhere. Well, at least we ate something nice:

Aubergine Sandwich.

Other news: we have our mower part and we are ready to mow. One slight problem: wetness, rain and puddles. Again, we are waiting for a run of sunny days. Meanwhile, we have been cooking and baking lots of goodies. We even made a Christmas Stollen with our own home-made marzipan! I will write a dedicated Blog post on it but I will leave you with a few enticing pictures:

Moulding Marzipan.
Making Stollen.

Stollen with vanilla ice-cream:

Stollen and Vanilla Ice-cream.

It took us days to make this but it was definitely worth it in the end. We polished off half of it and the other half is reserved for Christmas…meanwhile I am pouring generous amounts of our Cacao- fruit Elixir to make it extra special!

Belize, Farming, Food

A Very Wet Day!

We have had whole night rains for the last three days which has culminated in large ponds and pools forming on the farm. It is extremely wet; the goosies are loving the splishing and sploshing! We are stuck at home and the pasta maker done broke two days ago after a three day pasta marathon. Gnome said:

“…hmmm…things aren’t made to be used any-more…people just have these things as kitchen decoration or ‘one day I will make pasta with my pasta machine…'”

Oh dear…the poor machine did not survive the rigorous challenge of a Munchkin and Gnome marathon…we actually only got 12 hours out of it!

Anyway, Gnome has already taken the whole contraption apart and is in the process of fixing it. Meanwhile, I will sneak in a few more of our pasta pictures…

Mafaldine Pasta

Another Picture:

Tagliatelle Pasta

This one was an experiment. We put yeasted dough, flavoured with cinnamon and sugar, through the pasta maker and made long mafaldine strips. They puffed up very nicely when fried in oil.

Chiacchere Experiment.

Gnome tells me that this type of fried dough is called chiacherre in Italy. His Mum says that it is called frappe’ in Rome. You can use vodka, dry martini or even white wine to make the dough. I had never considered using alcohol in dough (what a waste of a perfectly good beverage!) but it actually gives a distinctive flavour to it and is worth doing if you like good food! A definite thumbs up from Munchkin who has been experiencing the joys of Italian food making and eating for the last few days.

Have a Great Weekend. Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you…we think the Flood Flies are coming out tonight. There has been so much rain that we think that this will stimulate the flight of the termite queens. From our point of view, it just means that there will be a right old mess of wings to clean up the next day! Remember to switch all lights off, close all doors and windows! Early to bed tonight…

Flood Flies 2016.
Close-up Flood Flies Wings.
Belize, Farming, Food

Back To Writing!

Hello Again! My apologies for not writing for a long time but I went through a “I don’t feel like writing phase.” Anyway, I thought it was best to try to get back into the flow of things and besides I have lots of goosie pictures! Okay, what’s been happening on the farm? Firstly, we still haven’t got the brush-mower working (story of our lives!) ; we got a part shipped to us a few weeks ago and Gnome put it in place. No sooner had he gone 10 yards with the machine, a ball-bearing flew out and shattered into tiny little pieces. Yes…we are yet again waiting for another part so that we can do the big mow “before the first rains start.” Ha-Ha…the rains have started already but luckily this year, our wonderful gaggle of geese are keeping the grass down for us.

These are my three month old geese…not babies any-more. They are friendly and follow me everywhere. In this picture, all four of them were trying to get into a basin but alas, the fourth one couldn’t fit in!

Goosies in Basin.

The last three days have been muggy and hot so we decided to take a few days off from farm work. We got out the pasta making machine and started a pasta-making marathon.

Here are some pictures:

We made a whole bunch of vermicelli:

Vermicelli.

We made yellow pasta with tumeric:

Yellow Ginger Tagliatelle.

We have been storing them in jars; it is nice to admire the fruits of our labour! So far with have 12 jars filled up with assorted pasta shapes and colours.

Pasta Jars.

Oh, and we made chocolate pasta; Gnome rolls the sheets out first:

Cacao Pasta.
Worked Cacao Pasta.

The pasta is cut into shapes and laid out in trays. We put them out to dry in the sun and by the end of the day, they are dry enough to be stored in jars.

Chocolate Mafaldine.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures. I will write again with a goosie update!

Belize, Farming

A Fiery Sunday!

We ave been starting super early with farm work since it has been very hot. We are out by 6am and back in at 10am. Sunday was supposed to be a relaxing and “let’s do a few odd jobs outside” day. Gnome started a fire on a pile of palm leaves and it burnt without a problem. The fire went out and I added some new palm fronds hoping to get this lot cleared up too…well, it started…a tiny spark of fire came out from my new pile and jumped onto the front fence line. Before my very eyes, the fence line was up in roaring flames about 18 foot high and touching the electricity lines. It was scary to see such an enormous wall of fire. Gnome came to the rescue and we ended up pouring a thick line of water on both sides of the fire to stop the fire from proceeding either way. One side was going towards the front gate so Gnome doused the wood in water and the other side was heading all the way to San Felipe Village. Luckily this strategy worked and we only needed about 5 pigtail buckets of water to get everything under control. Phew…it was touch and go for a bit and thank God, there was no damage. By the time we finished, we were hot and exhausted…it was still only 9.30am! The ironic thing was that my frond pile didn’t catch fire at all!

I don’t have any pictures of the fire because I was too busy carrying buckets of water! Anyway, we are not lighting any more fires…at this late point in the dry season, it can get too dry and there is serious danger of bush catching fire very quickly. We have learnt our lesson!

We have been clearing behind the house. Gnome felled an enormous tree which will give us a full week’s work of moving wood and piling. This tree is a legume so we are collecting the leaves to use as mulch for the vegetable beds. Just as an aside, Gnome strained his back again using the chain-saw so he is only on light duty right now. Oh, the life of a Gnome! 😉

Look, you can see the mountains behind:

Cleaning up.

Big tree; I have included a bit of the truck in the photo so that you can get an idea of the size of the tree:

Felling Trees.

That’s it for now. Stay Cool!!

Belize, Farming

Even More Goosies!

Another Blog post to let you know that we are still here and that this is indeed Goosie time. We have ten now which is a wonderful surprise since we thought that our eggs had been spoiled by a power-cut that stopped our incubator for the whole day. Well, here are the first four that are now 4 weeks old…they are at the ugly stage when they are just starting to feather. They have their own enclosed area to walk about and I take them for supervised foraging walks every day. These ones have black beaks (mostly) so they are probably the Chinese Goosie type.

Four Week Old Goosies.

We have another two Chinese Goosies that are two weeks old. I don’t seem to have a picture of them. They have been moved to a cage outside…these two are stupid and daft and can’t work out what to eat and what not to eat despite Munchkin teaching them. Gnome says that not all geese can be geniuses. 😉

Okay, so I need to show-case the last four; they are fat, fluffy, golden-yellow with short necks so we reckon that this lot are the German type of goosie. They are a lot noisier, more clingy and are constantly chattering amongst each other, at you and to anything (even the cat?) that might care to listen.

New Goosies.

More pictures of the new babies:

Even More Goosies.

They are very cute and fun at this age:

Sleeping Goosie.

And another picture:

Double Goosies.

I will write soon again to give you an update of the farm activities. Until then, have a lovely weekend.

Belize, Farming

Two More!

It has been very, very hot and unbearable lately. We just had a brief rain yesterday which managed to fill up our basins again. Oh, we must thank the Goddess of Goosies for her generosity again this year! Even with the incubator shut-down, we have more goosies to enjoy. I had been checking the double goose nest everyday and still there was nothing; on Wednesday, we were out of the farm for the whole day and we got home late. I was exhausted and convinced myself that there was no need to peak under Mama Goosie. However, Gnome insisted so I stomped outside and had a quick look and it was a good thing he insisted. There were two little fluffed up goosies twittering away…hungry and thirsty…these Mamas seem to be so broody that they don’t snap out of setting even with the sound of a gosling. So, here they are! We have two more and we are very pleased!

New Goosies!!

That’s all for today! Try to keep cool!!

Belize, Farming, Food

Dry Season Vegetables.

Hello, I thought I would take a break from talking about my goosies to show you some pictures of the vegetables that we grew this dry season. Dry season is always a problem because of the need to conserve water so irrigation can be an issue. This time, we had a line of basins placed behind our back veranda to catch rain water; the water was for the geese and the plants.

Water Basins.

We placed tyres around the perimeter of the house…you can’t see them in the picture but they are just underneath the house. A wire trellis was stretched from the tyres all the way up to the veranda to allow climbing vegetables to grow up them. So, here are a few of our favourites: Cherokee tomatoes; these are so good we eat them raw with salt.

Cherokee Tomatoes.

Our all time favourite vegetable is the bitter gourd; we found a nice, fat round variety to grow; these are huge and weigh about a pound each:

Big Bitter Gourd.

They are great for stuffing; look at the size of these!!

Stuffed Bitter Gourd.
Stuffing Bitter Gourd.

This Easter, Gnome stuffed bitter gourd with minced beef and cooked it “Italian-Style.” We also had stuffed Cherokee tomatoes and our own adzuki beans. It was a feast from our own garden!

Stuffed Bitter Gourd Meal.

We were really stuffed after eating this huge meal. It is truly a pleasure to eat our own vegetables…there is nothing like home-cooked food!

Belize, Farming

Easter Update.

Hope everyone had a good Easter weekend. We took it easy and took the new kids out to the pond area. They are getting bigger and the oldest one which is about 17 days old is 500g (1lb).

Some pictures of the kids (especially for Mama Gnome):

Awwwhhh!! My Goosies!!
Lovely Goosies 2019

So far, they had been kept in the sink with regular cleaning every few hours; even with that, they are messy and stinky. Alas, I must allow them into the big world out there. In the daytime, they have been placed in a wire cage surrounded by an outer perimeter. They have plenty of water, greens and food:

Little Goosies in Cage.

The inner cage is closed up to stop predators like hawks from swooping down and stealing the babies. The outer perimeter is to stop the adult goosies from stealing them. This is what happened last year: the adult geese would sit with the babies all day and every day 24/7 until the the goslings got used their presence and adopted all of them as their guardians. Once the cage was removed, the several adults that the goslings had imprinted upon would pounce and fight over ownership of the babies. What follows is a lot of goosie fighting and shenanigans possibly with incidental casualties as snatched babies get caught in the crossfire. I know…it can be like a war zone out here…

The goosies are doing well:

Plenty of fresh air and food!

I will try to update you more over the next few days. I have some computer screen problems…I mentioned it before…now I am missing a third of the right screen. We brought down an old monitor and on connecting it up, found that it had the same problem but the bottom third of the screen was missing! I suppose that between the two of them, I could use the computer. Anyway, I think Gnome is giving me his monitor so he won’t have one now! The humidity of the Tropics wreaks havoc on all electronic equipment…

Everything Handmade in Belize.