Tag Archives: Gourd

It’s Horrible Outside!

It is full on rainy season and it is absolutely pouring down.  Every morning we have been waking up to thunderstorms and torrential rain.  Water is flowing in tiny little streams on our farm and we haven’t been able to get out to work  for a full week.  This morning, Gnome said, “…oh that’s interesting…the weather report said it was going to be bright and sunny with a 1% chance of rain.”  Well, looks like we got the 1% or the weather report is totally, wildly inaccurate…I suspect the second.  😉

Anyway, this is the best time for pumpkins, gourds and all manner of curcubits.  The water allows the them to swell up into humongous fruit…and, I think this is the best part…those beetles that like to drill holes into all my tasty, delectable vegetables can’t get out to burrow holes because of the rains!  Ahhh, of course that is the silver-lining cloudy thing that Hallmark people like to point out to me.  😉

These are some bottle gourds harvested from our farm.  We eat most of them young but I have left three of them to mature to use as vessels to store some of our home-made wine.

Bottle Gourd Harvest.

We had our first breadfruit harvest this year; it has taken three years for the trees to start baring.  We probably have harvested about 100 from three young trees.

Breadfruit Tree
Breadfruit

We are eating the fruit as a potato substitute; of course, as all Belizeans will testify, breadfruit is best fried in oil:

We like to cut them into “chip” shapes (easier to eat with chopsticks!) but most people around here have them as half or quarter wedges.

Fried Breadfruit Chips.

Gnome cooked a breadfruit stew with his usual home-made wine, tomato sauce Italian thing.  It was very good:

Chopped Breadfruit.
Breadfruit Stew.

Oh, and Gnome has been sticking coke bottles around coconut trees…what is he up to?

Coke Bottle in Coconuts.

Pictures From The Farm.

Together.Tank.TopHello Everyone!!  It is Friday again so you must be all out having fun!  Here are some pictures from the farm:

Today we harvested our gourds which Gnome will be using to make me a dinner set (GnomeWare TM).  It will be a six month wait for them to completely dry out before he can even start doing anything with them.

Bunch of Gourds.
Bunch of Gourds.

It has been frightfully hot lately so I have been drying breadfruit out in the sun.  I had cut the breadfruit into fair-sized chunks of about 1cm (1/2 inch) and it took about three days for them to get to a very hard dehydrated state.

Green Breadfruit.
Green Breadfruit.

Dried Breadfruit Pieces:

Dried Breadfruit.
Dried Breadfruit.

We have these really tasty fruits in season which are crunchy like apples.  This is Ziziphus mauritania, otherwise known as Chinese apple, Indian jujube or Indian plum.

Chinese Apple.
Chinese Apple.

We are just eating them green right now.  They are also edible dried and actually dry into Chinese red dates which are used in Asian cuisine.

Chinese Red Dates.
Chinese Red Dates.

Good Night!!

Secret Gnome Stuff: Unveiled.

TogetherA couple of weeks ago, Gnome was doing “Secret Gnome Stuff.”  It was some sort of mound of cardboard, rotten grass and chocolate trash.  He also declared that the Munchkin was not permitted to sniff around this top-secret Gnome business.

Secret Gnome Business.
Secret Gnome Business.

This week, it was unveiled!!  Gnome had timed it perfectly to coincide with my Birthday week.

Paddy Straw Mushroom Peeking Out of Cardboard.
Paddy Straw Mushroom Peeking Out of Cardboard.
More Paddy Straw Mushrooms Starting.
More Paddy Straw Mushrooms Starting.
More Paddy Straw Mushrooms.
More Paddy Straw Mushrooms. 

Da Gnome does it again…he has managed to grow a mound of paddy straw mushrooms.  What a wonderful gift for a Munchkin…I feel so privileged!!

Gnome Magic!
Gnome Magic!

Also, Gnome is working on lacquering a gourd for me, which I will use as a water container.  In the usual typical Gnome-obsessive fashion, he says that he is going to lacquer the gourd a total of fifty times to give it a perfect, finished appearance (plus he wants it to last forever!).

Half Prepared Gourd.
Half Prepared Gourd.

Also, he has decided to make a whole range of “Gnome Ware” dinner ware, made out of gourds as ongoing gifts for me.  Wow…what a blessed gesture!  After the water gourd, he will start on the miso bowls.

Now, that’s what I call Love!!